Slashdot Mirror
Best Buy Acquires SpeakEasy
spazimodo writes "From the announcement e-mail from Speakeasy CEO Bruce Chatterley: 'I am pleased to announce that Speakeasy has been acquired by Best Buy, an innovative and growing Fortune 100 company and the top consumer electronics retailer in North America. This is a significant milestone for our company as our new relationship will help us realize our goals of becoming the No. 1 provider of voice and data solutions to small businesses. It is important to note that though Speakeasy will now be a wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy, we will continue to operate as a standalone, independent operating division with headquarters in Seattle.' As a longtime Speakeasy customer, it's too bad to see their business moving in this direction. Back in the day when I called up their support with a problem, and mentioned I was using an OpenBSD box as a firewall/gateway the response was: 'cool!' — slightly different from the response Comcast or Verizon would give. I can't imagine they'll be able to maintain that independence, and there's no way I'm paying a premium for Internet service to Best Buy."
Best Buy did the same thing with The Musicland Group (Media Play, Sam Goodie etc..) Media Play was one of the best jobs i ever had. Everyone got along, corporate realized that every store location served different demographics and let the stores cater to those needs. Then Comes best buy with their one size fits all mantra. All of the sudden all employees have to sell so many "replay cards" a month or risk termination. They sucked to fun out of that place in less then a year. Next thing you know MusicLand is out of business. I hate Best Buy.
I recommended Speakeasy to all my clients, and just about everyone I knew, because I had amazing service from them. Best Buy I've never had anything but shitty service from. As of a few minutes ago, I'm recommending everyone I know steer very clear, and all my clients who are currently using Speakeasy to be prepared for when things start collapsing.