CenturyLink Looks At Buying Rackspace

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."

Comments

Head in the clouds

[penguinoid]

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

Re:Head in the clouds

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I'm concerned...that's NOT where they've got their heads... >;-D

Re:Head in the clouds

[nucrash]

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.

Re:Head in the clouds

[wwphx]

Another case of cranial/rectal inversion, eh?

I REALLY hope not.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I REALLY hope not.

[linuxgurugamer]

This will merely accelerate our move away from Rackspace.

Re:I REALLY hope not.

[luminousone11]

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.

Re:I REALLY hope not.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.)

Re:I REALLY hope not.

[PoopMonkey]

Why are you still with them? Shitty company that has no interest in cleaning up their network.

Re:I REALLY hope not.

[bluec]

Expand please.

Re:I REALLY hope not.

[gandhi_2]

you must be talking about OVH and kimsufi.

Can only improve Rackspace

[grasshoppa]

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.

Re:Can only improve Rackspace

[Anonymous Coward]

...Challenge....Accepted!

Re:Can only improve Rackspace

[NatasRevol]

Spotted the Qwest virgin.

Re:Can only improve Rackspace

[bluec]

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

[segedunum]

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.

Re:Not a Surprise

[Jason Levine]

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.

Re:Not a Surprise

[cheater512]

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.

Re:Not a Surprise

[vux984]

One months notice cancellation policies are pretty much industry standard.

Re:Not a Surprise

[saleenS281]

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.

Re:Not a Surprise

[Jason Levine]

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.

Re:Not a Surprise

[cheater512]

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

[jbolden]

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.

CenturyLink is okay

[tomhath]

I've had them for land line and DSL for years. No complaints about service or support - just my experience with them, YMMV.

Isn't rackspace the owner of SGI?

[damn_registrars]

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.

I see a work environment problem

[Applehu Akbar]

Can Rackspace datacenters handle the steam and diesel smoke from CenturyLink's servers?