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Not cool, dude: Brit web host Hotchilli Internet freezes itself for good
Advises punters to move to 123 Reg... no, you heard that right
Web-hosting outfit Hotchilli has told punters the best way it can continue to serve their needs is by, er, shutting up shop.
The London-based biz penned a note to customers to warn them that services will be terminated from next month. In the letter, seen by The Register, services director Stephen Rees said:
At Hotchilli, we have always strived to bring our customers the best range of product and service offerings whilst endeavouring to provide value and the quality of service customers expect to receive. Part of ensuring we are able to provide this value involves comparing our service offerings and pricing against other service providers.
Following our most recent review, the results have unfortunately shown we have fallen behind our competitors. This has resulted in an in-depth look at our costs, service pricing and the investment required to maintain and indeed enhance the high level of customer service and range of offerings we believe our customers are looking for.
It is only following this most recent review that we have arrived at the very difficult decision to inform our customers of our intention to discontinue the services we provide.
Rees added: "We deeply regret notifying you of our intentions and would like to thank you sincerely for your custom."
Hotchilli warned of the upheaval customers will face when it pulls the plug on the web-hosting venture. "You will need to transfer and publish your content to an alternative provider before this date in order to avoid downtime."
It said domain names registered with Hotchilli will need to be transferred to another registrar and the DNS entries changed as required. "123-reg.co.uk offer competitively priced services for both domain registration and DNS services. Your new ISP may also have options."
However, the prospect of shifting to 123 Reg may not be to everyone's tastes, given a series of gaffes by the firm over recent years.
Hotchilli started life in 1997, and since then has changed hands multiple times. It was bought by DXI Networks Ltd in 2007, which in turn was acquired by managed services firm Maxima plc, which was then picked up by cloud and network integrator Redstone in 2012 for £9.9m.
In 2013 Redstone spun off its network managed services biz into newly incorporated Redcentric – the current owner of Hotchilli.
The Register has asked Redcentric to comment. ®
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