How did ownCloud come about?

The ownCloud project was founded by Frank Karlitschek in January 2010 because it was something he felt the world needed: an easy-to-use, secure, flexible way to manage data in the cloud, without being tied down to a storage vender.

Your cloud, your data, your way!

ownCloud Inc., the company, was founded to bring the principals of “Your cloud, your data, your way” to a wider audience. In this sense, both enterprises and individual users have the same need, which is why ownCloud is so powerful. It is built by users for users, by a community of users. The commercial entity is a logical extension of the community, providing the service and support enterprises expect in their solutions.

What problems does ownCloud solve?

There are three critical partners for the ecosystem: the community, systems integration and hosting partners.

The community developing ownCloud.org is very important (goes without saying). Beyond the community, there are training partners that help teams learn to use and administer ownCloud. There are systems integration partners, whose primary mission is to implement ownCloud for customers. And finally, there are hosting partners who want to leverage ownCloud to stand up their own services.

How is ownCloud different from its competitors?

As one would guess, ownCloud sees players in related spaces – like Dropbox or Box.net. The differences are related primarily to the business model. For instance, ownCloud doesn’t sell storage, ownCloud sells software. ownCloud is setup to not control your data, but to facilitate how you control your data. Because ownCloud’s business model is different, the ownCloud ecosystem will look different from what is already in the market.

The Tough Questions

Will ownCloud be able to garner the corporate support behind their project that OpenStack is having?

Will ownCloud be able to compete with enterprise solutions in the long run?

How will ownCloud effectively get the word out when it officially launches?