Kanosis. Coil Software is it now free ??

[Webwatch]

Well its been a while since I commented on the Kanosis shenanigans but to my surprise is the much exalted Coil Software now available for free instead of $23 a month.
www.coil-os.com

Or is this another re-launch/ pre-release/pre-launch of the original program.

Since marketing guru Mr Alistair Kildey has left the company (sacked), things seem to be struggling along- so is this re-launch a better attempt at introducing the software or will we be back to square one with downline/matrix building (hopefully not).

Also I've been told that Kanosis is offering 50GB of online storage which some members have been crowing about and saying this alone is worth the $23 a month, of course it isn't but nice try.

[concerned]

What???

I thought they had a gold mine. I bet they can't even take any takers for the free version. It reminds me of that time there was an ugly plad couch in front of my neighbors house with a sign on it saying "Free. Just haul away." My neighbor had to haul it to the dump himself.

[nexstar]

DATE: September 22, 2006

FROM: Kanosis Board of Directors

TO: All Kanosis Distributors (Subscribers earning commissions)

RE: Company Status



The Kanosis Board of Directors has met and determined that the company needs to hibernate then relaunch as an alternative to liquidation. Therefore, we have decided to take the following action:

(1) Kanosis Needs to Restructure the Distributorship Program

- Current distributor model was based on achieving 10,000+ sign ups/month, which was never achieved.

- Tweaking the existing distributor model is necessary to allow for more realistic targets.

- During restructuring, you are invited to contribute ideas toward a realistic distribution model.

(2) Your Credit Card Is No Longer Being Billed

- Majority ownership was not in "control" of the banking operation from Jan 06 until Mid Jul 06.

- After the 1st 30 days of being in control (Jul 06 to Aug 06) Kanosis paid commissions on Aug 15th.

- After the 2nd 30 days of "control", Kanosis corporate realized that it could not meet its financial obligation to distributors and immediately ceased, disconnected and quit running the credit cards of all Kanosians.

- All credit card charges to Kanosis were ceased on September 15th, 2006.

- Your credit card data is secure and will not be used or released for any purposes.

(3) You Can Continue Using the Service for Free

- All webtop functionality is active and your 50 gigs of online secure storage is at your disposal.

(4) No Commissions Will Be Paid Through this Indefinite Period of Restructuring

- No commissions of any kind will be paid until sometime after December 31, 2006.

- After December 31, 2006 Kanosis will begin a year-end audit of the 2006 year, verify all amounts owed and follow-up with you and disclose our ability to pay, if at all, and advise you of such.

(5) There Will Be No New "Paid" Sign Ups During Restructuring

- See item six (6) regarding new sign ups.

(6) The Service Is Open Globally for Free Sign-ups

(7) Kanosis Needs to Raise Investment Capital

(8) If You Do Not Wish to Continue with Kanosis

- Send an e-mail to cancelme@kanosis.com; state the amount of commission that you feel that you are owed.

This is an acknowledgment of insolvency. The above eight declarations are an attempt to locate an alternative other than liquidation of the company. This is an effort to give Kanosis a chance to survive, though it will be in a bit of a temporary coma.

With the best interest of all in mind,



Board of Directors

[Webwatch]

Thanks for the update Nexstar.
All webtop functionality is active and your 50 gigs of online secure storage is at your disposal.
Bearing in mind that Kanosis could be closing- I wouldn't reccomend uploading to much valueable data in case they can no longer pay for the servers to hold it.

It gives me no pleasure to be proven right as the earlier Kanosis discussions predicted the unsustainabilty of this marketing stratergy, ironically the Coil platform although overly complicated had potential even though a lot of it simulated already freely available software.

If the Kanosis board are watching-next time please build on firmer foundations than a Viral/Pyramid marketing stratergy.

Is this the end or a new begining.......

[itstheone]

Well this didn't last long!

Where's Jim with all his visions?

[vliscony]

Well, of course for this site, the conclusion must be that it was the business plan which failed. Because it is a type of plan that is being demonized as a matter of principle around here. I would say, the plan was fine, and it could have worked, with some tweaks perhaps, but the problems were more the execution than the structure, combined with the fact that many features were delivered later than originally promised, or not at all.

Provided the technology is rock solid, for a small company to breakout, the viral concept is a must, but is not reliable enough, is not duplicatable, so the financial incentive of NWM is a necessity in order to give it the staying power. The problem only comes when the "opportunity" overtakes the product/service in importance and it takes on the nature of a money game.

In essence Kanosis before May 1st was a "proof of concept," not a beta. On May 1s they delivered a beta, and at this writing the product is still in beta stage, and though it is promising, it is not up to fully delivering on that promise. Besides which many features that were once announced were never delivered.

Perhaps the biggest problem was that it was over-hyped during the pre-launch, upto and including idiotic testimonials that somebody had improved their marriage, because this software saved him so much time, and now he had more time with his wife - all the while there was no working version available at the time to anybody. The problem was there was no real beta going on during the pre-launch, there was only the non-functional proof of concept which was available to the users.

So managing expectations was a large part of the problem. The concept of the software was brilliant. What we don't know to this day, is if the company can deliver on their promises, or at least on enough of them to be viable. If they can, they will likely find the money (and the management) to re-launch the product/service the right way, and hopefully ignore the a-priori demonizing of NWM type incentives that are the norm on this site, for without those it is impossible to achieve the world-wide reach that the concept deserves. In the interim, since it is now free, anyone can try it, so the questions of what it does are resolved for those who would not become members before. The questions of what it could do one day remain unresolved as of right now.

[Arzel]

In essence Kanosis before May 1st was a "proof of concept," not a beta. On May 1s they delivered a beta, and at this writing the product is still in beta stage, and though it is promising, it is not up to fully delivering on that promise. Besides which many features that were once announced were never delivered.


You make an interesting piont, but fail to recognize the obvious flaw of your analysis. Prior to May 1st, they claimed that the product was "Production", not "Beta". If it was "Beta" why were they charging "Production" cost for their product?

The real issue is that they had/have a product of limited value, and tried to build a business on it using the tried and true pryamid scheme. It failed becuase of pure mathematics. Kanosis has been unable to acheive the sign-up rate required for such a pryamid/ponzi to remain sustainable. And since their product was of limited value, they could not attract the average person that might find interest in their product.

Bottom line, is that Kanosis is designed as a money making program, trying to come across as a legitimate company, but had no legitimate service to offer. Perhaps if they had spent more time developing their software, and less time developing the money making aspect of the program, they would have been able to develop something of value.

[Webwatch]

Kanosis from its very conception was doomed. 'Discuss'

Coil.
A java application promoted as a new unique Internet operating system which would revolutionise the way we surfed the internet.
Using Kanosis Servers members could surf the web with added security and create user groups to securley share files and applications. Also the ability to store your files on a Kanosis server and view them from another computer. The Coil Sparc feature also added a type of instant messaging to the package. Designed to create a community of Internet users who could share and communicate on one easy to use platform.
As my software knowledge is not that great this is just my limited overview.

Marketing Stratergy.
Promising to be the next big thing with potential earnings of $36,000+ simply by recruiting others at a cost of $22 per month minimum.
Coil was touted as only the beginning of many other services on offer by Kanosis and the coil subscription would be enough plus recruiting two others to start the commisions rolling in.

Hype
Unfortunately in the early days Kanosis was so overhyped that its own foundations where already looking shaky, coupled with the high expectations of having a Herbalife CEO, Steve Whittington (We never did get to the bottom of that) and Marketing Guru Alistair Kildey (Goji Juice) on board.
Seen as a great combination by many meant this surely could not fail. Already the product/service 'Coil' had taken a back seat and Scam friendly forums such as MMG already had the Heavy Hitters in place to push this in pre-launch and get their downlines in place.
Even with the no advertising clause in the Kanosis T&C still the Hype grew and the google adds started appearing (albeit for a limited time).
Its worth noting in the early days the biggest heavy hitter seemed to be a certain member called 'africancures' whether this was Mr Kildey's member name is pure speculation.
The Hype followed the usual trend-i.e. bigger than Google-2 years ahead of Microsoft etc so if this was true how could it possibly fail.

With a May 1st launch all bets would be off and the Kanosis wave would take over the internet causing a 'Paradigm Shift' in the world of computing-did this happen? well I missed it if it did, more of a dripping Tap than a tidal wave.
Never the less the 'Make a Monkey out of Me Group Forum' (MMMG. Oops to many M's) still pushed and pushed on how great the finacial rewards could be with the occasional mention of 'Coil' (remember 'Coil' thats what its all about) to try and build their downlines.

Commision Payments
Then we had the problem of Uniclear and commision payments I'm still not sure what happened here but eventually cheques would go out for commision payments instead.
I'm sure commisions must have gone out to some members or things would have come to an end a lot quicker how many are still owed money I really don't know.

Avalanche Program.
Kanosis spawned a particularly nasty e-mail lead system which in my opinion was just another ruse to suck more money out of members, luckily it never lasted and hopefully not to many where sucked in.

Hard to learn.
Coil had its problems with being hard for the average user to understand which didn't help matters. Not an impossible mountain to climb but more Beta testing and user friendly wizards (See Microsoft word etc) could have been installed which may have solved this problem.

Conclusion
Well the phrase Kanosis tried to run before it could walk spring to mind but really it was a case of trying to run before being able to crawl.
Kanosis fell victim to the Hype of its own marketing startergy which is always a risk in Network Marketing. It promised much but delivered little in terms of financial reward apart from the select few right at the top of the Pyramid/Family Tree/Matrix.

The Future
If Kanosis can simplify the Coil user interface and continue in free mode for a while maybe all the rough edges can be smoothed away and it will find its way onto many desktops and find its place.
It still needs something unique that other free software doesn't have and maybe eventually a charge can be made for the service-one which users will be happy to pay for. This all takes time and I have no idea whether the Kanosis coffers are large enough to sustain a non profit service for long.
If they keep potential customer expectations high but at the same time realistic maybe there is a chance for 'Coil'.

Kanosis Forum a quick heads up.
Many will now see the opportunity to spam the Kanosis forum with every MLM/Pyramid/HYIP/Chain Letter Scheme they can get their fingers on to try and tempt kanosians in to another 'Opportunity', this will no doubt have been going on since day one but now is not the time to join something else which is probably even worse. i.e. Club Freedom- Bet thats on there.

Sorry for the long post I got carried away.
Just my opinion of course, nothing more.

[itstheone]

Has anybody d/l this coil software and had a good look at it?

[Webwatch]

I think its still free at the moment:
www.coil-os.com
Coil is currently available in a limited alpha edition only. In order to insure we provide you with the best software experience, 2000 alpha accounts are now available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Sign up, get your seat, and let us know what you think. Your interest and support are the core of our business.

[itstheone]

You know it bugs me when mickey mouse companys (who wish they were legit) like Kanosis can't even spell!

It should be 'ensure' , maybe it's just me but spelling mistakes are a red flag.

[Webwatch]

Yep the devils in the details, so someone once said, I think :o

I won't mention the only a few places available (well 2000) 'Get your seat' stuff (damn I just did), haven't we been here before. :confused:

Maybe I'm just paranoid :)