Welcome Steadfast customers (Fluid Hosting acquires Steadfast H-Sphere customers)

[FH-Dave]

As of October 27th, Fluid Hosting has acquired Steadfast H-Sphere customers (shared and reseller) base.

The following email has been sent by Karl Zimmerman (President of Steadfast Networks/Nozone, Inc.) to all of Steadfast H-Sphere customers

Letter to Shared Hosting Customers

I’ll get right to the point: Steadfast Networks will be selling all shared hosting customers to Fluid Hosting effective immediately. We have been in the shared hosting business for 12 years now, but the direction and core of our business has changed drastically over those 12 years. Our focus has shifted to managed dedicated servers and colocation, while shared hosting now makes up a very small percent of our business. We do not feel that with so few resources dedicated to shared hosting that we can continue to provide the level of service our customers expect. After over a year of researching options, this sale appears to be the best way to help us concentrate on our core business while, at the same time, assure our shared hosting customers are still given the best level of service possible. This decision is not being taken lightly, as most of our shared hosting customers have been with us for many years, some for 5+ years. Our goal in the end is to assure that everyone continues to receive the high levels of service they have come to expect.

A sale would not be possible if it weren’t for a company such as Fluid Hosting, as we were only interested in selling to a company with a similar platform and the same high standards of service. Fluid Hosting uses the same H-Sphere control panel you have become used to, offers true 24/7 ticket based support, has shared hosting at the core of its business, and has a strong track record of nearly 10 years in this industry. In addition, Fluid Hosting provides phone support without requiring you to open a ticket in advance and offers web based chat support from 9AM – Midnight Eastern Time during weekdays. Both are improvements over our current support offerings.

Starting immediately, Fluid Hosting staff will take over all support/billing/sales inquiries and all payments. We are confident that Fluid Hosting will handle this transition as professionally as possible. Over the next several months the Steadfast Networks staff will continue to provide assistance to assure that the transition goes on smoothly and all customers are getting the best treatment possible.

Over the next couple days Fluid Hosting will be contacting you with more details regarding this transition.

It is sad to see you go, but at this time we are certain it is the best for all involved. As your business/site continues to grow, Fluid Hosting will continue to take a good care of you. We wish you well in your future endeavors.

Karl Zimmerman
President
Steadfast Networks/NoZone, Inc.

[FH-Dave]

The following email has been sent to all Steadfast's H-Sphere customers

PS: please do not reply directly to this email as your reply may not be attended to. Instead, please open a ticket from your control panel should you have any further questions/concerns about this email. You may also contact us at the contact information provided in this email notification.

Dear Valued Customer,

As you probably have been made aware, as of October 27th Fluid Hosting LLC has acquired Steadfast’s H-Sphere shared and reseller hosting customers. On behalf of everyone at Fluid Hosting, I would like to introduce ourselves to you and welcome you. I would also like to extend our gratitude to Karl Zimmerman and everybody at Steadfast for making this sale possible and professionally done.

While our staff will start taking care of all support, billing, and sales tickets, we will continue working with Steadfast over the next few months to ensure smooth transition of all hosting operations. Both Fluid Hosting and Steadfast have your satisfaction as our number one priority during this transitional period. Be assured, we will make sure our level of service meets, and even exceeds, the level of service you have been enjoying with Steadfast.

At this time, please allow me to touch on few important points regarding this sale.

1. We have no intention to change the plans and pricing you currently subscribe to. In fact, throughout our ten years of operation, we have yet to increase pricing on our own customers. If you like what you have, you can keep it as long as you desire. However, in the near future we will also make available new bigger and better plans for you. At which time, you are free to switch to these new plans if you so desire.
2. Within the next few days we will work with Steadfast to transfer all domain registration from their registrar to ours. We will do our best to keep all domain registration pricing the same.
3. Over the next few months, to streamline all hosting operation, we may start to integrate your account(s) to our H-Sphere cluster. However, at this moment we have no intention to move you away from Steadfast network to our own POP inside Equinix IBX data center in Secaucus, NJ (NYC metro area). We have the plan to setup our second POP inside Steadfast network and if this is done, you will be migrated from Steadfast’s servers to ours. Steadfast has allowed us to use all IPs currently used on its H-Sphere cluster. However, to make the IP assignment cleaner, we may perform IP migration to our own IP space. These server and IP migrations will be planned with utmost care to minimize, and even avoid, any service interruption.
4. In the near future we will start introducing Windows shared hosting and reseller hosting plans to all customers. We have been offering Windows hosting since 2002 and have been a Microsoft Hosting Partner since 2004. Resellers will enjoy the capability of offering dual platform (Linux and Windows) hosting to their customers. With this, you will enjoy having access to Windows technology such as ASP, .NET (we support .NET 4.0), MSSQL, Share Point, and so on.
5. Since 2007 we have been investing more than $200,000 in equipments and research hours to build our own N+1 Redundant Cloud Hosting Infrastructure. Our cloud hosting infrastructure is powered by Dell PowerEdge R710 nodes with dual Intel E5520 and 72 GB memory and Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN on the backend with Citrix XenServer as its virtualization engine. At this moment, our entire H-Sphere cluster is powered on this cloud hosting infrastructure and we intend to upgrade and run Steadfast’s H-Sphere cluster on this infrastructure as well. To learn more about our cloud hosting infrastructure, please visit our community forums at http://forums.fluidhosting.com/showthread.php?t=3924.
6. Effective immediately, we will start taking over all credit card and PayPal payments. If you are paying by credit card, you will start seeing the charge coming from "Fluid Hosting LLC." Please check your control panel for information about where to send your check payment.

We will continue to maintain open communicate with you. You may see all announcement about this sale posted on our website at http://www.fluidhosting.com/steadfast/announcement.php as well as on our community forums at http://forums.fluidhosting.com/showthread.php?p=20215.

Should you have any question and/or concern about this sale, please do not hesitate to contact us by opening a ticket from your control panel. You can also contact me directly at dave.tong [at] fluidhosting dot com or by phone at 800-653-1019 x803. I am also pasting our other staff information below:

+ John T. Yocum / I.T. Manager
+ 800-653-1019 x805, john.yocum [at] fluidhosting dot com

+ Gama Waney / Assistant Customer Relation Manager
+ 800-653-1019 x804, gama.waney [at] fluidhosting dot com

We would love to have a chance to talk to you and to know you in person.

With warmest regards,
Dave Tong
Founder and Owner
Fluid Hosting LLC

[FH-Dave]

And the following email has been sent to all of our customers:

PS: Please do not reply to this email directly as your reply will not be attended to. Instead, please open a ticket from your control panel should you have any further questions/concerns.

Dear Valued Customers,

We are excited to inform you that we have completed the acquisition of Steadfast’s (http://www.steadfast.net/) H-Sphere customers as of October 27th, 2010. We consider this a strategic move for the reasons outlined below.

First, H-Sphere is at the core of our business. Thus, it makes sense for us to absorb Steadfast's H-Sphere customers, especially given that we have an in-depth experience and knowledge on H-Sphere already.

Second, Steadfast has been using Litespeed (instead of Apache) on its H-Sphere Linux web servers. Litespeed web server offers performance advantages over corresponding Apache web server and this acquisition allows us to acquire the technological know-how of the implementation and integration of Litespeed web server into our existing H-Sphere cluster.

Third, we have been looking to open up additional POPs in other major cities in US west-ward of our current NYC metro POP. This acquisition opens a possibility for such plan to be executed.

And finally, this acquisition allows us to improve services to Steadfast's H-Sphere customers by introducing Windows hosting and cloud-based H-Sphere setup. Such features are default for our current customers and will definitely be welcomed additions for Steadfast's H-Sphere customers.

Additional information regarding this acquisition is available at http://www.fluidhosting.com/steadfast/announcement.php. We have also created a thread on our community forums at http://forums.fluidhosting.com/showthread.php?t=4162 for further discussions.

On this note, I would like to welcome Steadfast’s H-Sphere customers into our extended family.

Sincerely,
Dave Tong
Founder and Owner
Fluid Hosting, LLC

[coaster]

Sounds like a really exciting aquisition for Fluid Hosting!!

As a customer, though, there's one concern I have that I, and perhaps others have, and that's the planned transition to Litespeed web server. Now maybe it's just my ignorance; I don't know much about web servers; but the only experience I've had has been with Apache. I know all my scripts run well on Apache, and I use Apache htaccess directives to manage various aspects of site's web services. Am I going to have to change anything? Or is Litespeed "Apache-compatible" and will everything continue to run as is?

Sorry if this should be posted elsewhere; please split and move as necessary.

[FH-Dave]

Tim,

Litespeed claims that it is Apache interchangeable. It should also support .htaccess. Litespeed will also perform much faster than Apache.

Depending on how it goes, we may replace Apache in the future, but at this moment we plan to keep all apache web servers and will only implement Litespeed on newly provisioned servers. I see that I was not clear on this in my letter. My apology

[na_mirage]

Re the OP's quoted section;

------------------------------
Quote:
Letter to Shared Hosting Customers

I’ll get right to the point: Steadfast Networks will be selling all shared hosting customers to Fluid Hosting effective immediately

------------------------------

Thats *not* what steadfast have said in their email to customers, or on their forum post over here:

ht tps://support.steadfast.net/index.php?_m=news&_a=viewnews&newsid=296&group=def ault

Q - "I’ll get right to the point: Steadfast Networks is selling its entire shared hosting operation to Fluid Hosting effective immediately."

Changing text in what is supposed to be a direct quote isn't a great start .
I'm a steadfast customer being affected by this change and I don't really appreciate being described as a commodity item that can be bought and sold.
Karls original text was more appropriate.

I do appreciate the seamless transfer that you are doing, but which was kinda expected given the underlying h-sphere system.
It would have been nice to get 30 days notice from steadfast of this change as I'm not particular sure yet if I want to do business with fluidhosting.
I'll be keeping an eye on this forum and looking to see if can find other hosting I'd prefer to use.

You've got some extremely high standards to live up to, to match the excellent service steadfast have provided myself and other steadfast customers over the years.
Lets hope that fluidhosting is up to it.

[FH-Dave]

Welcome na_mirage,

Originally Posted by na_mirage

Changing text in what is supposed to be a direct quote isn't a great start .

Both Karl and I worked to agreement on the letter that was supposed to be sent to Steadfast's customers. It seems Karl made a final revision which I did not get. So, my apology if the version I posted was different. No ill was intended though.

I do appreciate the seamless transfer that you are doing, but which was kinda expected given the underlying h-sphere system.
It would have been nice to get 30 days notice from steadfast of this change as I'm not particular sure yet if I want to do business with fluidhosting.

The terms of the sale is something that I and Karl have worked on and come to agreement. Unfortunately with such sale, advance notifications may not be possible.

I'll be keeping an eye on this forum and looking to see if can find other hosting I'd prefer to use.

We would love to have you remain as our valued customer. I know that there are always concern and anxiety with any business acquisition. But we are not a fly-by-night hosts (having been in operation for the last 10 years) and Karl will not have chosen us if he did not think we would be able to take a good care of you.

And, you are certainly not a commodity! We have all intention to treat you the way we treat our own customers.

You've got some extremely high standards to live up to, to match the excellent service steadfast have provided myself and other steadfast customers over the years.
Lets hope that fluidhosting is up to it.

We will live up to it, and even exceed your expectation.

[coaster]

To the Steadfast customers who are concerned about standards and service: you may well be pleasantly surprised with the standards and service here. I've been a client for about two and a half years, and have absolutely no complaints.

... except maybe all the staff are so darned polite and businesslike, not to mention patient, that ....

.... sometimes ya really gotta wonder .....

(too much perfection just isn't human, ya know?)

[Laimonas]

Am also from Steadfast. Would like to ask 2 questions:
1) Are backups for free at Fuid?
2) What webmail clients are you using? Do you have Roundcube, which I liked most? How much space do you provide for emails? Steadfasts plans didn't show place for mail. I.e. I had Basic plan, which mentioned 500 MB of space, but actually I had 500 MB for site and additional 250 MB for mail.

[FH-Dave]

Originally Posted by Laimonas

Am also from Steadfast. Would like to ask 2 questions:
1) Are backups for free at Fuid?
2) What webmail clients are you using? Do you have Roundcube, which I liked most? How much space do you provide for emails? Steadfasts plans didn't show place for mail. I.e. I had Basic plan, which mentioned 500 MB of space, but actually I had 500 MB for site and additional 250 MB for mail.

Welcome Laimonas,

You can keep what you have with steadfast. So if you have roundcube, we will keep supporting that; we don't have any intention to change anything for the time being. Steadfast plan is very generous, though for this reason, their servers are quite stressed out at this moment. We would introduce more servers and start balancing out load.

Regarding backup. Whatever policy you have with steadfast, we will simply carry forward. For our own customers, while we do not charge for backup, we do charge when backup restore is requested, especially when it is clear such restore is requested due to customer's own negligence. However, this policy is currently under review and may change when we release our new TOS shortly.

Let us know if you have any further questions/concerns

[FH-Dave]

Originally Posted by coaster

To the Steadfast customers who are concerned about standards and service: you may well be pleasantly surprised with the standards and service here. I've been a client for about two and a half years, and have absolutely no complaints.

Thank you for the word of assurance, Tim. Looking forward to serving you for the years to come

... except maybe all the staff are so darned polite and businesslike, not to mention patient, that ....

.... sometimes ya really gotta wonder .....

(too much perfection just isn't human, ya know?)

We ... are ... indeed ... robot ...

[Laimonas]

Dear Dave,
would you be so kind to say "yes" to my following questions:
1) Plan -500 MB for site + 250 MB for mail, unlimited domains, free backups, USD 52.95/year.
2) Webmail clients- Roundcube, Squirrelmail
What DDos protection are you using?
Thank you.

[FH-Dave]

I think I have made it clear. Yes, whatever you have with Steadfast, you can keep it.

You are on Steadfast network, so whatever DDos protection Steadfast is on, you are on that too.

[Emily]

I have a bone to pick! Lol.

Ok I am part of the whole Fluid buying Steadfast deal. I'm all for change, as long as the change is good, and first impressions are everything, aren't they?

Well sad to say, my first impression wasn't good of Fluid. I will explain why.

On October 27th, 2010 I received an email from steadfast about the sale.
On October 29th, 2010 I received an email from Fluid Hosting, about the kernal upgrade.

Where did my Welcome email go? Why didn't I get one?

I emailed Fluid, and they replied right away with an email showing times and dates of 'all' the emails they have sent me. Nowhere in there, did it show the first email I got on October 29, 2010, even though they indicated in their email that it was 'all' the emails they had sent me.

Now I am all for change, as I stated. But it would of been nice to have received that email along with all the other clients, as I'm sure there was information that I would of wanted to be aware of. To be honest this left me feeling as if I didn't matter.

Should I be looking for other hosting? Maybe I should, or at least have a place I may want to go to. I am really hoping that this is one of those things that happen. I use gmail as my email service, and I never had a problem with my hosting sending me emails or any other email for the matter, that I can recall. Perhaps it's something that should be looked into further.

I have 4 domains hosted here, and well it's a lot to consider moving, more than one would think, so I am really hoping to stay, and fall in love with Fluid Hosting.

Well I said my peace, I hope that this don't ever happen again. I want to like Fluid but this wasn't exactly a great beginning lol. Anyway thanks for the speedy reply, that I do appreciate very much! Something I loved about Steadfast! And I see Fluid is going to be on top of things, many thank you's!

[Emily]

I posted this elsewhere but heard nothing. Does Fluid Hosting have a twitter account, if so what is it, if not, will they get one soon? Thank you !