Sky announcement on Easynet sell-off expected by Thursday
We'll talk about this speculation later
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Sky is expected to finalise a deal for a management buyout of its networking business Easynet by the end of this week.
The firms declined to comment for our story yesterday regarding ongoing negotiations between Easynet's CEO David Rowe and CTO Justin Fielder, and Sky.
However, following publication Easynet wrote to all staff about our story, which was sourced from insiders who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals. The missive explains that management will make an announcement about the "speculation" by Thursday 22 July.
You may have seen speculation in the media about the potential sale of Easynet.The official position from Sky is that we are still a part of the BSkyB family. We are unable to respond at present however we anticipate we will be able to provide you with a fuller response by Thursday 22nd July 2010 at the latest. In the meantime please don't let this speculation worry you – it's business as usual.
If you are asked a direct question regarding this matter by a customer or a supplier then please relay this message to them verbally, and inform them we will proactively communicate further details as soon as we are able to.
It's a surreal position to adopt: The Register's story was "speculation", yet we can't respond to it, but don't worry, we'll be making some sort of announcement about it by Thursday.
Sky bought Easynet in 2005 for £211m, ahead of its push into home broadband. It's understood that under the proposed buyout the Murdoch empire will retain control of the Easynet network. ®
COMMENTS
Well
Anything to do with the nightmare that is the current BT-provided & resold system really. With a few notable exceptions all that's going to happen to you is that you'll be constantly misled and usually actively lied to - ie oh its BTs fault, when half the damn time they haven't even reported the fault to BT.
Take our neighbour for example. BT (ISP side) told him for years that all he could expect in the evening was 1-2Mbps because of noise on line/line quality (aluminium etc)/congestion/contention/you name it. Years. The whole time of course Be, UKOnline, Sky and a few other unbundled operators were available. He moved at my prompting. BT tried to tempt him back by saying they could now offer him 7Mbps - he gets 21Mbps from Be now. Now he didn't get 21Mbps at first, he got 9Mbps but Be progressed the obvious fault on the line where BT (ISP not Openreach or whatever they're called this year) hadn't. He didn't want UKOnline as its Murdoch :)
I only noticed the issue with UKOnline a couple of weeks after it started - was busy at the time. First line support gave me the usual load of guff* so I jumped to Dan who worked it out within a couple of emails - few days since I didn't have the time for calls. Wasn't a major issue but was nice to avoid the scripts. In terms of real time spent sorting it - 25 mins or so.
*they're a bit better now - I think back in 2008 there was some overlap with Sky support. There currently isn't but...
@lotuswolf
Blasphemy! That never happens. The almighty dollar, the market and the holy spirit of competition always ensure that there is a viable economic reason to think of the long term, the customer and strategic investment instead of quietly bonuses and golden parachutes.
Your cynicism makes you a pinko/commie/liberal/[Fox News commentator's insult of the day].
Also: Damned if you aren't right on the money.
"We are unable to respond at present"....
.......They're too busy inking the paperwork for the sale.
Expect:-
- Senior management getting pay rises and bonuses
- Redundancies
- Downsizing
- Existing staff workloads going through the roof (You now wear 4 hats, not just one, remember
- "the company has the right to ask you to do other little bits and pieces beyond your normal contracted role"
- "We expect flexibility from employees"
- Escalation techies like Dan and anyone else with any decent experience in the business will disappear and be replaced by "Davide" who has worked in telecomms for 5 mins and is on a 10th of the pay of the previous staff.
- Call queues where there weren't any before
- Increased network outages because the company has lost direct access to the network and the "men who can"
- "Refocusing of the business"
- Outsourcing
Followed by a slow death and sale of the brand name and IP and finally closure of all offices linked with the business and redundancies for all.
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