[mlmilleratmit]

Good question, I _think_ the ideas is the exact opposite -- you're not depending on Glowforge UI to be backed by a startups servers, the software runs on google cloud instead. Pros and cons, obviously, but I think the main pro is (like a Tesla) the machine's performance and usability can be improved without you installing any new software. As far as dependencies go, google's probably the best possible choice.

[Implicated]

> you're not depending on Glowforge UI to be backed by a startups servers, the software runs on google cloud instead.

What? Who is going to pay that bill? For example, Glowforge goes out of business... Google isn't going to continue to host and maintain that software out of the kindness of their hearts.

> but I think the main pro is (like a Tesla) the machine's performance and usability can be improved without you installing any new software.

What does the UI being web-based, and "in the cloud" have to do with it's firmware?

For example, if the UI wasn't hosted on some google server, instead existed within the device accessible via WiFi (like a router) nothing you've said here would be any different... other than the user being able to decide themselves if they _want_ their device updated.

[lightbritefight]

Not defend something needlessly cloud based, but this:

>but I think the main pro is (like a Tesla) the machine's performance and usability can be improved without you installing any new software.

is likely referring to them updating their cloud infrastructure, not the machine. By centralizing the processing and whatever else, they can ignore some local machine updating.

Its not worth the massive drawbacks, but its likely the truth wrapped in that marketing speak.

[beefman]

A bit off-topic, but you gave me an idea: What if Google did guarantee to host stuff forever when startups go out of business? It would eliminate customers' reservations in cases like this, and hence eliminate business reservations about going all-in on cloud services. The increased business could potentially more than cover Google's cost.

The trick would be the care and feeding of the software. But as the industry moves to more immutable infrastructure -- especially stuff like AWS lambda and JAWS -- this will become less of an issue.

[EvanAnderson]

I'd gladly take the "con" of installing new software over having a useless brick if the startup tanks.

[ISL]

Do you know if they provide direct hardware hooks, too?

I've not met a precision cutting or metrology tool where we didn't need to get low-level access to the hardware to get simple things done....

[mlmilleratmit]

Good question for somebody on the GF team. My last company was Cloudant so my biases are pretty obvious.

[tlrobinson]

Huh? Someone has to manage and pay for the software running on "Google's cloud".

[mlmilleratmit]

That part is, in my experience, vanishingly cheap if you're not doing high rate DB transactions. The whole thing could clearly be moved to other managed hosting providers or private servers, and I'm sure ultimately you can run a somewhat constrained version on the device itself. That said, launching in the cloud seems like the right choice temporally (time-to-market) and economically. Focusing (sorry) on building the actual device seems like a reasonable choice to me.