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ATLXSpeedFactory
@comcast.net | reply to speedfactory
Re: Speedfactory is STILL IN BUSINESS!
I tell you one thing, I've certainly jumped ship because of the amazingly ridiculous way this was handled.
They BETTER NOT try to charge my card and they BETTER NOT try to charge me for leaving, or it's going to be one helluva court battle. | |
MrOrph
@adp.com
| reply to speedfactory
Right! Still in who's business?
The benefit of the doubt isn't dark for days. There should at least be a receptionist in the office, and a way to field calls.
Here's the deal, charge back from my credit card, moved to AtNex (great folks thus far), and a fond, albeit pissed off, farewell to SF!
This is really bad business people. If there was a problem that wasn't business related, you'd been up over the weekend. You must be waiting for business hours to attempt to negotiate a failed debt. I'd put money on that.
cya SF. | |
heretohelp2
join:2008-04-14 | reply to speedfactory
»messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stock···10&frt=2 | |
AtlGeek
@atlanticnexus.net | reply to speedfactory
Dumped SF, switched (successfully) to AtlanticNexus.com.
I'm back on the net now! Good luck to everyone, thanks AtNex. | |
Athens101
join:2004-08-23
Athens, GA
| reply to speedfactory
I am look at AtNEX right now. Same bang for the buck as SF.
3/384 no blocked ports and a static IP for $84.99 month.
I am REALLY pissed since a my comic »anotherrandomday.com was hosted on my home server. Last week it made the front page of Reddit and we were having 26,000 page views per day. Lost a bunch of add revenue this weekend. Also Athens101 another Athens community site I also run was having a PSA cancer notice about donating bone marrow. Yeah we missed that one this weekend as well.
That pisses me off a LOT more than lost revenue. What do we get? A free month of DSL from a company that might not last that long? Aww, shucks, thanks guys.
I am calling AtNEX in the morning and figuring out if I can put an order on hold for when not if SF goes under. | |
Seen_this_movie
@abraxis.com
|  reply to speedfactory
Well, I am glad to see SF got back up eventually. Wife was able to forward all her email off to other systems.
Having been in IT for 20 years, and having worked for, consulted for, or dealt with everyone from, well, let's just say the "Intelligence community", DOD, USAF, several GA state agencies, several Fortune 100 corporations, to DOZENS of small to medium businesses all I can say is... if it smells like DEAD FISH three different ways, then that is probably what it is.
Reasonable conclusions can be drawn. We can tell several things, I think.
First, the lack of communication was critical. There were technical means to communicate with the customers (in an official capacity). No apparent attempts were made for whatever reason (we can speculate, but why bother). Vague anonymous postings (which may or may not have been authorized by management) don't count. Damage Control 101 is a core management responsibility and it is hard to imagine how this situation could have been handled worse... from the customers point of view anyway.
Second, vapor-ware platitudes about how plans are going to be enacted to prevent this from happening again can reasonably be seen by customers as useless. It is hard to tell with the complete lack of information (see point 1) but if the critical infrastructure was that badly neglected then there is no expectation that effective remedial efforts will be managed any better. Assuming it really was a hardware fault.
Third, when your SEC filings are widely distributed and clearly indicate a lack of operational funds past Q1 2008 the base management competency and business model is already questionable. It leads directly to the speculation, based on sound observation of closed office, dead phone lines, and circuit "inactivity" the business is failing or closed. Regardless of whether the circuit was suspended for lack of payment or not. Credibility is DESTROYED.
I can speculate and guess several things. Having worked these kinds of things, I have to admit complex technical environments can get... complicated. You can have "redundent" components, circuits, routers, whatever. You try and eliminate all the "single points of failure" you can, but it can be nearly impossible to REALLY get them all. Depending on what happens, the standby systems may not kick in like they are supposed to. Engineers try and anticipate what can go wrong but if there are a lot of "moving parts" it can get nearly impossible to anticipate and prevent everything. I have seen multi-million dollar "redundant systems" catastrophically fail. It can happen. Rare though, if proper business risk analysis has justified the proper engineering. I think SF just went under (long term consequences) because that wasn't done. My kingdom for a horse.
Several key things to note. First, it appears the really skilled or senior technical staff in Atlanta left, were let go, or forced out. Attracting, retaining, and motivating key critical technical talent is a CORE requirement for good management of a technology based company. Small companies have a real tough time. Especially if management sucks. Big ones do too (management always sucks at the mega-corporations). Everybody pays lip service to the ideas, but if your key people leave and you cannot replace them, then management has FAILED. Management usually fails to forsee the consequences for the business. Parts are available all over Atlanta. Skilled engineers could have put this back together (or a workaround) quickly if they had any kind of resources. Assuming it was a system failure.
I think management here went into STEALTH mode, absolute news blackout, on purpose. This is one school of thought in damage control. It prevents the important people (who own stock in your company, or whatever) from finding out what has happened (and selling for example). Limit the exposure. Who owns stock AND reads the forum here? Really, they can write off a bunch of angry posters in this forum. I suspect they are hoping, praying, counting on a bunch of customers DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE. By shutting up maybe they can keep 80% of their customers. They hope. I believe this typical approach costs much more in the long run and succeeds only inversely to the magnitude of the failure. Big failure is an ISP down for 72+ hours. Low chance for success I think.
I could be wrong. I've only suffered through a few dozen IT catastrophes and seen oh... a number... of really bad management responses over the years. Maybe I am cynical? Jaded? Or Wise. Snotty comments allegedly from the COO online could be an imposter but it sure sounds like the kind of management I'd associate with this kind of scenario. Snafu.
All this adds up to management is ultimately responsible and failed to prevent, mitigate, handle, or address the situation in any way that is acceptable for a utility or service provider.
What has changed as of Tuesday morning when they come back to work? Nothing. This has happened to many companies before... Good company built to a certain high standard. Sold to or taken over by others who managed to screw it up (pun intended).
So, off to a (hopefully) better service provider and don't look back. »www.Abraxis.com returned calls and had me up and running in under 6 hours (IFITL). That is a good start.  | |
teradude
join:2008-04-13
Cumming, GA | this is a good summary of what has happened, recapping and amplifying what a couple of other posts in other threads summarized. Thanx for a thorough analysis. | |
da3dAlus
join:2002-12-18
Duluth, GA | reply to Seen_this_movie
*clap*
*clap*
/stands
*clap, clap, clap, clap*
Well said sir, well said. | |
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