
Saying farewell to Pixate - msis
http://blog.pixate.com/post/151340396973/winding-down-pixate
======
mortenjorck
The part that galls me about this is not the shutdown – such is life in a
world of cheap acquisitions and expensive maintenance – but the communication
around it. For months, as Pixate went without updates, the Pixate team would
placate the occasional "is Pixate being abandoned?" threads in the support
community with vague reassurances that they were "working on something great."

And so it turns out that regardless of whatever this great thing is, there
will be no continuity between Pixate and it, and anyone who relied on Pixate's
cloud features will have to find something else in the meantime.

Personally, as I currently have an entire team using Pixate Cloud in the
field, and now have less than a month to find, test, implement, and train an
alternative, I can't say this experience has left me with much faith in
whatever Google comes up with to replace it.

~~~
adrianN
That's what you get for relying on a cloud solution...

~~~
FussyZeus
As fair as this statement is to make, it doesn't make it suck any less. It's a
sad state of affairs where this is commonplace enough.

The Cloud was supposed to FIX the problem of mobile computing, not exasperate
it.

~~~
habitue
*exacerbate

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daveguy
> We joined Google just over a year ago to continue our mission...

Well, that explains it.

~~~
w1ntermute
It's good to know that their Incredible Journey will continue within the halls
of Hooli…oops, Google!

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Touche
Less than 30 days notice to get your data out, not ok.

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anilgulecha
Is there a list maintained of acqi-hired-shutdown projects by large companies.

~~~
Asparagirl
There's "Our Incredible Journey (putting the _ack!_ in acquihire)".

[https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com](https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com)

~~~
mindcrash
Alternatively there's
[http://wevebeenacquired.tumblr.com/](http://wevebeenacquired.tumblr.com/),
although OIJ is much more frequently updated.

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fokinsean
Read this as "Pixel is no more" and thought I was about to read some super
dramatic rant about Google's phone.

I think that signals I should get back to work.

~~~
AstroJetson
And I read also read it as 'Pixel is no more' and went "Wait, what, Raspberry
Pi just released that as their new desktop."

Off to call my eye-guy, may be time for new glasses. :-)

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on_and_off
Kinda excited by this acqui-hire for once.

Google seems intent on building a good design tool, I hope that we will
finally have a design tool for the adaptative UI era.

~~~
javajosh
Let us hope. But what ends up happening in a big company is that their is
tighter coupling between concerns, which locally looks like interference. At
the very least it increases the resistance to iteration, and diffuses focus.
Psychologically, I think it's also extremely difficult to go from being self-
directed to manager-directed. That can build a lot of resentment that comes
out in funny ways, like quitting.

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infinite8s
Given that the desktop version (Pixate Studio) is based on Atom, will it stop
working after they shutdown?

~~~
andholt
Nope, Studio will continue to work.

~~~
infinite8s
Ah, that's better than another recent tool company that was aquihired/shutdown
- WagonHQ, which was also Atom based, but downloaded the core of the app when
you started it up.

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IshKebab
> Pixate Studio will no longer be available for public download. If you still
> need a copy, grab one here for OS X and Windows.

That seems like an odd choice.

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overcast
Never heard of them. It's a shame this isn't a standalone application,
actually looks pretty awesome to use.

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wehadfun
Was it wireframing software?

~~~
sunbear
Front end mobile prototyping - high fidelity & animatable

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simooooo
Never heard of them. But their product looks very slick.

~~~
Semiapies
I've yet to have ever heard of any of the companies in the daily "this startup
is shuttering its service" posts. The spectrum of reactions always amuses me.

~~~
rhizome
Often I get the feeling I'm watching a discussion about roster tweaks in minor
league baseball. VC is an industry unto itself.

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jscheel
Hold up, lemme put on my shocked face... :|

