When I worked at Microsoft I remembered lots of people in the evangelism group worried that Linux was taking over the startup world in Silicon Valley. Heck, I was one of those people who noted that almost every startup was using LAMP instead of Windows.

There are very few opportunities to change the decisions of a startup in terms of the infrastructure that has been chosen.

What are they?

1) When a startup first germinates. Why? Cause that’s when an entrepreneur decides between Linux, Sun, or Microsoft backends. And on databases. MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, etc.
2) When a startup hits a major resource snag. IE, a major server dies and needs to be replaced.

I can’t think of another time when a startup could be switched from one ecosystem to another. Do you?

So, why am I telling you this? Because Zooomr is in the second group. I just got off the phone with Kristopher Tate and they are really in dire need of new database machines to get their servers back up.

If I were working at Microsoft or at Sun I’d be flying a team to Zooomr to help them get back up and running. I’d also videotape everything, and make a big deal about how a startup survived due to these efforts.

It’s interesting. Lots of companies claim to care about startups. Here’s a chance to help one. And, even, get one to switch from LAMP to Windows or something else. Anyone in?