CenturyLink Looks At Buying Rackspace

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CenturyLink Looks At Buying Rackspace

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday September 8, 2014 @04:45AM from the under-new-management dept.

Rambo Tribble writes Telecom player CenturyLink is reported to be considering the acquisition of server and cloud provider Rackspace. From the article: "The deal would add more Internet and cloud services to CenturyLink's roster of phone and data communications packages, helping it better compete against Amazon.com in Web-based services. Microsoft Corp. and Google are also vying for business as companies transition from owning and operating servers to renting space in the cloud."

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Head in the clouds by penguinoid · 2014-09-08 04:48 · Score: 3, Funny

Am I the only one concerned about all these supposedly intelligent people walking about with their heads in the cloud?

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1. Re:Head in the clouds by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 05:19 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  As far as I'm concerned...that's NOT where they've got their heads... >;-D
2. Re:Head in the clouds by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 05:33 · Score: 0
  
  Last I checked Rackspace still allowed Co-Located and Dedicated Servers, not just Cloud Services.
3. Re:Head in the clouds by nucrash · 2014-09-08 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  When hearing about the cloud, I tend to use the early shore based ocean analogy of what made the early oceans and oceans today cloudy. Clouds in the water were generally masses of spermatozoa looking for an egg to fertilize. So when someone references head in clouds, I can't help but think of this as a potential bukake party.
  On a serious note, I have a serious problem with an ISP trying to provide cloud services and vice-versa. This is the same reason I take issue with Google Fiber. I love the speed of Google Fiber and how it shakes up the industry, but I take issue with who is providing the service the same as I take issue with CenturyLink buying up Rackspace.
  
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4. Re:Head in the clouds by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 05:55 · Score: 0
  
  Its obvious they've got their asses in the clouds as well, since they can't tell the difference between their heads and asses to begin with.
  omfg: Captcha: Clouding
5. Re:Head in the clouds by wwphx · 2014-09-09 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  Another case of cranial/rectal inversion, eh?
  
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I REALLY hope not. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 04:51 · Score: 1

as someone who remembers the qwest days and the centurylink that came after, I can't imagine a more ridiculous mismatch of cultures of customer service.
1. Re:I REALLY hope not. by linuxgurugamer · 2014-09-08 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  This will merely accelerate our move away from Rackspace.
2. Re:I REALLY hope not. by luminousone11 · 2014-09-08 05:11 · Score: 1
  
  Even a James bond villain would question of the ethics of CenturyLink.
  
  And where are they getting the money?, They where at last I counted over $20 billion dollars in the hole, And Rackspace isn't large enough to be used as part of their leveraged buyout "WorldCom" esk scam.
3. Re:I REALLY hope not. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  I hope this doesn't happen. Rackspace is a good company with decent CS, and they treat their employees fairly decently. They even have one of the faster mirror sites.
  I don't know about CenturyLink, but my fear is that Rackspace gets taken over, all the clued L1/L2 techs get sacked, and tech support winds up going to script-readers offshore because customer support is a cost center. For the engineers who keep things running, it gets palmed off to an offshore contractor and their armies of H-1Bs, again because it is cheap to do so.
  Rackspace has a good name for security... however, since security has no ROI, I am concerned that it might be taken lightly after a buyout... and a compromised cloud provider would have grave consequences, since there is no way clients can ever repair the damage (the TOS for the provider is pretty much bulletproof.)
4. Re:I REALLY hope not. by PoopMonkey · 2014-09-08 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  Why are you still with them? Shitty company that has no interest in cleaning up their network.
5. Re:I REALLY hope not. by bluec · 2014-09-08 06:38 · Score: 1
  
  Expand please.
6. Re:I REALLY hope not. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 06:49 · Score: 0
  
  ServiceNet is the wild wild west vs AWS security groups. RackConnect use the network over servicenet, so no security there. RackSpace is happy as hell to sell you a dedicated, private cloud solution if you want to guarantee PCI.
7. Re:I REALLY hope not. by gandhi_2 · 2014-09-08 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  you must be talking about OVH and kimsufi.
  
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Can only improve Rackspace by grasshoppa · 2014-09-08 05:07 · Score: 1

Seriously, having been stuck with rackspace email for as long as I have been, I can only expect things to get better. They could hardly get worse.

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1. Re:Can only improve Rackspace by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 05:11 · Score: 1
  
  ...Challenge....Accepted!
2. Re:Can only improve Rackspace by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 05:22 · Score: 0
  
  The only thing this is going to do is make Rackspace worse. This is the time to start planning your evac route and move to another provider.
3. Re:Can only improve Rackspace by NatasRevol · 2014-09-08 05:32 · Score: 2
  
  Spotted the Qwest virgin.
  
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4. Re:Can only improve Rackspace by bluec · 2014-09-08 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  I've used Rackspace email for about 10 years, since before it was even Rackspace email, and found it to be consistently great. What's the problem? I also used their manager servers some years ago and also found those very, very good. The company has grown a lot since then so I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of their service and support has reduced somewhat, although their prices hadn't last time I had a quote from them.
Not a Surprise by segedunum · 2014-09-08 05:23 · Score: 1

Rackspace has been living a charmed life for quite some time. The thorny issue of making money rears its head though and people just aren't going for the completely uneconomical prices that Rackspace charges.
1. Re:Not a Surprise by Jason+Levine · 2014-09-08 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  I used to have a site hosted on a Rackspace dedicated server. Monthly hosting costs were over $350 a month. Then we moved to another host with a comparable dedicated server and our costs dropped to about $170 a month. Recently, we realized that we didn't need a dedicated server and switched to a VPS host for $34 a month. Unless your site is extremely powerful or resource-intensive, you probably don't need a $300+ a month dedicated server, despite what Rackspace tells you.
  As a post-script to our move off of Rackspace, I contacted them to cancel our plan well before the renewal date. They informed me that our contract stipulated that I needed to give them one month notice. I went looking for the clause. Our contract referenced or original contract and buried in there was one line with this stipulation. They refused to waive this. So we wound up having to pay about $350 extra for a dedicated server we weren't using because they decided to be sticklers for a line hidden in the legalese. Lessons learned: 1) Always read your contracts. 2) Ask way ahead of time about cancellation procedures so you don't get caught by hidden rules.
  
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2. Re:Not a Surprise by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 07:30 · Score: 0
  
  .. and when you do contact to cancel well in advance of your desired cut-off date.. they can, if they're complete dicks -- and some are or can turn into them with the certain loss of a lucrative account anyway, turn around and throw a different clause in your face that goes something like this.... we reserve the right to refuse or terminate service without cause at anytime without prior notice... so when you are switching, have the new setup *ready* to go live at a moment's notice before you attempt to cancel the existing service.
3. Re:Not a Surprise by cheater512 · 2014-09-08 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  One month for hosting isn't terribly uncommon nor unreasonable.
  Your new host will have the same line, unless you are billed per hour (E.g. AWS) and in which case you still need to pay for the full hour even if you terminate the server after 5 minutes.
4. Re:Not a Surprise by vux984 · 2014-09-08 10:03 · Score: 1
  
  One months notice cancellation policies are pretty much industry standard.
5. Re:Not a Surprise by saleenS281 · 2014-09-08 14:40 · Score: 1
  
  I wouldn't consider "well before the renewal date" to be less than one month before the renewal date. That is literally standard operating procedure at every hosting company I've ever worked with.
6. Re:Not a Surprise by Jason+Levine · 2014-09-09 00:40 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe I wasn't clear. We were with Rackspace for years and decided to go with another hosting provider. So, a few weeks before the end of our term, I told them we'd like to cancel at the end of the term. I was told I needed to pay for an additional month due to some obscure contract line.
  When I cancelled with my last dedicated hosting provider, I made sure ahead of time to ask what I needed to do. They said I could log into their panel and submit a cancellation request effective either immediately or on a certain date (like the end of my payment term). No requirement to have an entire month's notice.
  
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7. Re:Not a Surprise by cheater512 · 2014-09-09 14:47 · Score: 1
  
  That is weird. Sounds like the person you got didn't have a clue.
  If you begin the cancellation process 60 days before you want it cancelled, and they have a 30 day policy, then you should be fine and not have to pay for 90 days.
Not a bad merger by jbolden · 2014-09-08 05:35 · Score: 1

I think this merger makes some sense. Century Link plays larger than most RackSpace customers with their private cloud. Rack Space doesn't have a super close relationship with any of the networking companies. I can see some nice synergy. As a Century Link channel partner, I'm hoping this goes through.
Already bought weren't they? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 05:44 · Score: 0

WTF? I could swear I already saw an article in the last month saying that someone else bought or was buying Rackspace? What happened to that?
Headling: CenturyLink to Kill Service Quality by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 06:03 · Score: 0

Like ComCast, CenturyLink is a curse. If it gets its hands on RackSpace, RS customer should prepare for a right drop into shit service.
Why... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 06:06 · Score: 0

Must telcos makes everything worse.
I've been riding rackspace ass for two years because they fell so flat on their customer service promises. We also paid over $30k for the luxury of it... But! After finally preparing to switch, they got their shit together and for once really did live up to all their marketing gimmicks. Can't tell you how shocked I was... If it'd had been like that all the time the price gouging would've been worth it.
I'd been planning on moving us back when we needed dedicated hardware (primarily our database), but if CenturyLink buys them that'll be a no go. Rackspace is nice when you want VPS mixed with dedicated hardware. You can even run your own "cloud," and provision machines as you see fit... There, to my knowledge, aren't many competitors offering that (sadly). Which makes this more disheartening.
As someone else said those cultures are completely incompatible. No telecom has ever been about actually helping their customers (no really; I worked for a few... They're perverse companies).
"Customer service" meet "customer disservice..."
Definitely feeling bad for the nice folks in Texas working for 'em if this goes through... And really not looking forward to doing the old server provider hunt again.
Maybe a good thing by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 06:33 · Score: 0

If CenturyLink is any better than crackspace when it comes to eliminating spammers, maybe this will be a good thing.
CenturyLink is EXTREMELY abusive. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 08:00 · Score: 0

My experience is that CenturyLink is EXTREMELY abusive.
CenturyLink is okay by tomhath · 2014-09-08 08:09 · Score: 1

I've had them for land line and DSL for years. No complaints about service or support - just my experience with them, YMMV.
1. Re:CenturyLink is okay by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-09 02:24 · Score: 0
  
  Being subject to CTL's corporate and wholesale services, it's pretty stupid up there. There appear to be no back-up routers or interface cards, so a bad device in just the right place can take down a whole region. They let one of their core services domains expire a year ago or so which caused a massive outage for their services. So on and so on. Service doesn't seem to be the problem, it seems to be the managers who restrict what happens below them.
Isn't rackspace the owner of SGI? by damn_registrars · 2014-09-08 08:24 · Score: 1

That would mean that a company notorious for lousy customer service is about to buy a company whose greatest assets are irrelevant.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Carry on.

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Customer Service by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 08:57 · Score: 0

I have never before experienced such horrible customer service than I have using CenturyLink. It is equal to, or more terrible than Comcast.
I see a work environment problem by Applehu+Akbar · 2014-09-08 09:07 · Score: 1

Can Rackspace datacenters handle the steam and diesel smoke from CenturyLink's servers?
1. Re:I see a work environment problem by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-12 01:05 · Score: 0
  
  Can Rackspace datacenters handle the steam and diesel smoke from CenturyLink's servers?
  As one of a group of small people who designed and implemented the current CTL datacenter (server, network, and SAN) architecture, I think I may be offended by that remark.
Re:My roommate and brother work for CenturyLink by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-08 12:56 · Score: 0

Rackspace, the people who wrote and published OpenStack rackspace?