Granted, services are not required. But if you're going to charge for a hosted IRC server (and you require nickserv to join a channel) you might as well clean them up and make them slightly user-friendly/functional.

Rewriting an irc daemon from scratch is a bad idea. The multitude of existing irc daemons and their hybrids are proof that the technology's complex enough to take years to stabilize, much less secure. If it does actually succeed they'll run into the growing pains of scaling that (assuming they add standard irc cluster topology) will bring on netsplits and other potential issues. If I were a hacker i'd look at a from-scratch not-quite-complete alpha-release IRC daemon as a fun toy to mess with. And if I owned a company I wouldn't want to risk my private communications on such shaky ground.

I'm not saying it isn't a cool idea... it just needs a few years to cook before i'd put my money or business into it (or at least a reputable, secure codebase)

> Also, since it appears to be a new & custom irc server, i'd not really be willing to trust corporate communication on a platform known for attracting hackers. > Obvious troll.

I wonder why did the popular media portray IRC as a hacker hangout, when yahoo messenger rooms and other group chats are implementation of the same concept.