Considering the Shoutbox as an example here. Can you imagine the level of support demand a self-hosted chat system would require?

IPS would almost have to support configuration at the server level to ensure Chat would function correctly. And with the varying types of server configurations out there that would be a nightmare.

IPS hosting Chat ensures the service is stable running on a server that's specifically tailored to run it.

Look at IRC, do you host the server? In most cases no, you're connecting to a remote server.

Hopefully that makes sense.

The chat pricing really isn't that bad.

Not to mention that whereas self hosting would be fine for small to medium sites, but imagine it on a large site, with thousands of users, at any given time you could have hundreds of users connecting to it at the same time. Server load, much?

They can always zend or icon cube the files (like nexus) and bake in some logic that knows the license limits.

 

They can always zend or icon cube the files (like nexus) and bake in some logic that knows the license limits.

Sure, they could. But that doesn't chnage the dynamic of ensuring the clients server can run Chat.

 

Right, but they're the ones providing the infrastructure so that's their prerogative.

If it's self hosted, the resources being used are those of the server it's installed on, it has nothing to do with IPB at that point.

If they handed it over to a different server, yes they don't have the resources used up...they also don't get any income from it, which is likely why it is likely to remain an IPS hosted product...they use their resources and get an income from it, instead of saving resources but losing the income :)

We do not have any plans to allow self-hosting of IP.Chat. There are third party chat solutions should you feel you require a self-hosted solution. :)

 

We do not have any plans to allow self-hosting of IP.Chat. There are third party chat solutions should you feel you require a self-hosted solution.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

IP.Chat will naturally be updated for IPS4, and will see feature improvements too. I can't promise it'll be like a shoutbox though; it'll likely remain as a section of your site that users go to to chat.

​Glad to hear this.