It’s been rumoured for a while, but hosted-application service Zimki is closing at the end of the year (or rather, by the end of 2007).

As a Zimki user I’ve not had an email through about it nor is there any announcement on the front page (I discovered the sign-up notice by accident after I referred Zimki to a friend, I’m not sure how long it’s been there), and the T+C’s don’t state a termination date. Y’never know, it might just be the ‘beta service’ that’s finishing and it’ll go to a full product.

Seems unlikely though.

Update: Another colleague who’s been playing with Zimki has received a ‘service announcement’ email confirming that all existing Zimki data will be deleted on 24th December:

As of 24 December 2007 all applications and data remaining on the Zimki service will be deleted and the servers decommissioned. Users are advised to move their applications along with any associated data before the closure date. There are no plans to opensource Zimki.

What a shame – it wasn’t a bad idea at all. What other alternatives are out there for such hosted services which don’t have a SPoF in the company they’re hosted by?