No matter what the company, there's always the chance the company will go way. Companies far larger than ours have done so in this and other industries. There are probably a lot of Premise or ex-Premise users around here, for instance. But, in some ways, our small size actually makes us almost immune to actually going away. Most companies die because they are burning the candle faster than they can add to it. Actually that's probably the most likely way to be successful, but it's also dangerous for the obvious reasons. Being conservative, as we have, and never spending more than we have, has its own sorts of costs and limitations.
At this point, we aren't going to open source it, so no need to worry about that. We could get purchased of course, that's always a possibility, no matter how large or small a company is. It's probably not nearly as much of a possibility as I would like, but it is one. And I don't say that because I'm looking to bail out and run off to Bermuda. No one is going to buy us and not strap me securely to the mast for some number of years. So I'm still on the hook one way or another. But I'd have a steady job, someone else could worry about the legal hassles, and we'd have a real staff of technical and sales and marketing folks.
As to having some hardware, it cuts both ways. Yeh, you can buy stuff cheap, but you have to set it up. Depending on what your time is worth to you, and how technical you are, a $1000 or $1500 box that includes the software and is ready to just plug in and turn on may be far more of a deal for you than buying a software product and setting up your own system. Though, in small quantities, it's probably not very easy to make good money even selling them for that much.
