Photopoint down?
Drifting
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 1,499
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From: Cincinnati OH
Re: Photopoint down? (TeamZ06)
From another thread:
Read this:
Troubles once more at PhotoPoint?
By Michael R. Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Sunday, December 16, 2001 - 12:32 ET)
Online photofinisher which spent days offline without warning last
July has vanished once more...
We've been absolutely flooded with emails over the last couple of days enquiring as to
the status of online photofinisher PhotoPoint, which last July changed hands. Current
owner Pantellic Software Inc.'s site is also offline, and we're endeavouring to get in touch
with our contacts at the company to determine what the cause of this latest outage is...
PhotoPoint did send us an email on December 7th noting that "[we] have encountered
some technical difficulties" and that they had taken the MarketPlace section of the site
offline. It seems since then that the site itself went down some time on Friday, from what
we can ascertain from reader emails.
Pantellic Software Inc. originally developed the PhotoPoint website before selling it to
PhotoPoint Corp. in 1999. The latter company went into liquidation at the end of last
June, and shortly afterwards the site returned to its creators, as Pantellic acquired the
PhotoPoint.com property and re-signed contracts with third-party companies to provide
services such as printing and creation of photo-customised gifts.
More on the PhotoPoint situation!
By Michael R. Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Monday, December 17, 2001 - 13:28 ET)
Site still down for a fourth day as reader emails continue to flood
in...
We told you yesterday about a major outage ongoing at online photofinisher
PhotoPoint.com, and whilst we've yet to elicit any comment from our contacts at the
company, some reader emails do shed more light on the situation. One such email
came from Andrew Murphy, who provided info and photos from the offices of Pantellic
Software Inc. (the company behind the PhotoPoint service) last July when the site was
down for a similarly long period. Andrew tells us:
"At 11:28 I spoke to a lady "in the financial department" of Pantellic, who "was
not at liberty to tell me" whether the downtime was organisational or technical,
or when service was to be restored. She then backtracked from "not at liberty" to
"I have no idea what's wrong, I just found out this morning that we are down."
She suggested that "someone" would be in this afternoon who might have some
idea what was up.
The place was even more unpopulated-looking than the last time - she was the
only person in evidence."
Another reader, Al Mark, pointed out that the Pantellic-hosted Epson PhotoCenter website
is still online and operational. The 'About Us' page on PhotoCenter notes that the site
"was co-developed by Epson ... and PhotoPoint ... [this] means the site uses
PhotoPoint's technology and content, and is hosted at PhotoPoint's technical center." If
this information is up-to-date (which, since it refers to PhotoPoint Corp., it may well not
be) it does seem somewhat unlikely that some kind of catastrophic equipment failure
has taken the PhotoPoint site offline yet left another site hosted in the same complex
untouched. (It is certainly still possible for an equipment failure to affect one site and
not the other, though.) It seems that perhaps this is a similar case to last July, where
legal wrangling over the fate of the site whilst PhotoPoint Corp. went bankrupt essentially
required the plug to be pulled, and also meant that until negotiations were over neither
company could publically comment even to let customers know the reason for the
outage. Whatever is up at PhotoPoint, we'd guess that the staff are working their hardest
to restore the service, whether that's by fixing technical problems, or through some kind
of legal process.
Whilst it might be small comfort to Ebay users in particular, who use the site to host
photos for their auction businesses, it does seem that reading back over our reports for
the history of July's outage might be enlightening. Although the site was down for an
extended period, it did come back up - and without the loss of anyone's photos. Paying
customers were given two months' free extensions of their accounts as a remuneration
for the period of the outage, and it did become clear that Pantellic had little choice in
whether or not to tell customers what was happening in 'real time' due to the legal
process they were negotiating.
As with last time, we'll endeavour to get the full story to you as it unfolds. Watch this
space!
Thanks to Andrew Murphy and Al Mark for this item!
:mad :mad :mad :mad :mad
Read this:
Troubles once more at PhotoPoint?
By Michael R. Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Sunday, December 16, 2001 - 12:32 ET)
Online photofinisher which spent days offline without warning last
July has vanished once more...
We've been absolutely flooded with emails over the last couple of days enquiring as to
the status of online photofinisher PhotoPoint, which last July changed hands. Current
owner Pantellic Software Inc.'s site is also offline, and we're endeavouring to get in touch
with our contacts at the company to determine what the cause of this latest outage is...
PhotoPoint did send us an email on December 7th noting that "[we] have encountered
some technical difficulties" and that they had taken the MarketPlace section of the site
offline. It seems since then that the site itself went down some time on Friday, from what
we can ascertain from reader emails.
Pantellic Software Inc. originally developed the PhotoPoint website before selling it to
PhotoPoint Corp. in 1999. The latter company went into liquidation at the end of last
June, and shortly afterwards the site returned to its creators, as Pantellic acquired the
PhotoPoint.com property and re-signed contracts with third-party companies to provide
services such as printing and creation of photo-customised gifts.
More on the PhotoPoint situation!
By Michael R. Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Monday, December 17, 2001 - 13:28 ET)
Site still down for a fourth day as reader emails continue to flood
in...
We told you yesterday about a major outage ongoing at online photofinisher
PhotoPoint.com, and whilst we've yet to elicit any comment from our contacts at the
company, some reader emails do shed more light on the situation. One such email
came from Andrew Murphy, who provided info and photos from the offices of Pantellic
Software Inc. (the company behind the PhotoPoint service) last July when the site was
down for a similarly long period. Andrew tells us:
"At 11:28 I spoke to a lady "in the financial department" of Pantellic, who "was
not at liberty to tell me" whether the downtime was organisational or technical,
or when service was to be restored. She then backtracked from "not at liberty" to
"I have no idea what's wrong, I just found out this morning that we are down."
She suggested that "someone" would be in this afternoon who might have some
idea what was up.
The place was even more unpopulated-looking than the last time - she was the
only person in evidence."
Another reader, Al Mark, pointed out that the Pantellic-hosted Epson PhotoCenter website
is still online and operational. The 'About Us' page on PhotoCenter notes that the site
"was co-developed by Epson ... and PhotoPoint ... [this] means the site uses
PhotoPoint's technology and content, and is hosted at PhotoPoint's technical center." If
this information is up-to-date (which, since it refers to PhotoPoint Corp., it may well not
be) it does seem somewhat unlikely that some kind of catastrophic equipment failure
has taken the PhotoPoint site offline yet left another site hosted in the same complex
untouched. (It is certainly still possible for an equipment failure to affect one site and
not the other, though.) It seems that perhaps this is a similar case to last July, where
legal wrangling over the fate of the site whilst PhotoPoint Corp. went bankrupt essentially
required the plug to be pulled, and also meant that until negotiations were over neither
company could publically comment even to let customers know the reason for the
outage. Whatever is up at PhotoPoint, we'd guess that the staff are working their hardest
to restore the service, whether that's by fixing technical problems, or through some kind
of legal process.
Whilst it might be small comfort to Ebay users in particular, who use the site to host
photos for their auction businesses, it does seem that reading back over our reports for
the history of July's outage might be enlightening. Although the site was down for an
extended period, it did come back up - and without the loss of anyone's photos. Paying
customers were given two months' free extensions of their accounts as a remuneration
for the period of the outage, and it did become clear that Pantellic had little choice in
whether or not to tell customers what was happening in 'real time' due to the legal
process they were negotiating.
As with last time, we'll endeavour to get the full story to you as it unfolds. Watch this
space!
Thanks to Andrew Murphy and Al Mark for this item!
:mad :mad :mad :mad :mad
