Slicehost announced their merger:
http://www.slicehost.com/articles/2008/10/22/big-news-today
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I wrote to comment:
Hi Matt and Jason,
Can you think of any tech mergers that went well? eBay and half.com,
eBay tries to shut down half.com and merge it in. Sun buys Cobalt
Networks. Kills them. eBay and CL. Who else? The only time this
works is when the resulting company dwarfs any competition and can
stand on size alone. Otherwise, you've just entered a sack race with
a much larger, much more ruthless company. Seriously I'm happy you're
able to cash out, but I wish just once a company wouldn't try to pass
off an acquisition as no big deal. And it's always the same line...
nothing will change, leverage our collective strengths, yadda yadda.
If you're bored, check out the five year quote on E.W.Scripps. That's
after they bought Shopzilla and collectively sunk each other. And of
course it was the same old line when they merged. That was only my
most recent rat-fleeing-ship experience. With how many dot com
burnouts you have for customers, you think you'd play it straight. Oh
well =(
-scott
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Matt replies:
You're right Scott, mergers are never easy. But I'm sure you can look at this industry and see the direction it's headed. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Rackspace - they're lining up to control the future of hosting. We were a small company with good technology and a head of steam, but this is a VERY expensive battle. An acquisition wasn't in our plan, but we clicked with Rackspace. Our products and respective markets are nice complements to each other. The foundation of their company is the same as ours - crazy good customer service.
Ultimately we're taking a gamble and choosing a side, we're in it to win. We're going to keep doing what we've always done, but now we have their resources and experience behind us. We can grow faster, move faster and keep up with the big boys. It was as much of a gamble to stand on the sidelines and stay the course. We'll see how it plays out. Thanks for the comments.
matt
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-scott
