Orcon ending Windows Hosting

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adw

175 posts

Master Geek

#1129472 15-Sep-2014 21:37

MurrayM:
mattwnz: I am on the same plan as you too. Did you get contacted about the removal of the gold support a year or so ago?

I'm on an iServe LifePlan Plus too. I do remember an email from Orcon saying that the 24/7 support was going to end (I might still have it somewhere if you want me to try to find it).

I was quite miffed at the time as I have a copy of the original LifePlan contract and it says "What's included in iSERVE LifePlan Plus? ... 24x7 Gold Tech Support" and then in the FAQs it says "Q. What happens if iSERVE is sold, or changes management etc? A. The terms and conditions of your iSERVE LifePlan will continue to be honoured for life. We are committed to providing one of the best hosting services in New Zealand, and should iSERVE ever be sold to another company, it will be one that is just as committed to customer service as we are."

When I took up the offer of buying the LifePlan Plus plan I was assured that everything in the plan would be honoured by any future owners, and it clearly hasn't been since Orcon removed the 24/7 Gold Support. I've been waiting for Orcon to decide that the LifePlan's should be totally scrapped, I'm sure that must be on the agenda.

Yep, now they've removed the windows server (yet still seem to be offering it on Orcon). We have over 300 domain names with them but they're not interested. Guess we're all too small fry for them...

Mighty Ape

Shop Mighty Ape for electronics, games, computers books and more (affiliate link).

mattwnz

19389 posts

Uber Geek

#1129481 15-Sep-2014 21:51

MurrayM:
mattwnz: I am on the same plan as you too. Did you get contacted about the removal of the gold support a year or so ago?

I'm on an iServe LifePlan Plus too. I do remember an email from Orcon saying that the 24/7 support was going to end (I might still have it somewhere if you want me to try to find it).

I was quite miffed at the time as I have a copy of the original LifePlan contract and it says "What's included in iSERVE LifePlan Plus? ... 24x7 Gold Tech Support" and then in the FAQs it says "Q. What happens if iSERVE is sold, or changes management etc? A. The terms and conditions of your iSERVE LifePlan will continue to be honoured for life. We are committed to providing one of the best hosting services in New Zealand, and should iSERVE ever be sold to another company, it will be one that is just as committed to customer service as we are."

When I took up the offer of buying the LifePlan Plus plan I was assured that everything in the plan would be honoured by any future owners, and it clearly hasn't been since Orcon removed the 24/7 Gold Support. I've been waiting for Orcon to decide that the LifePlan's should be totally scrapped, I'm sure that must be on the agenda.

Hi Murray, good to get your input and feedback on this.

The thing is that when we purchased the life plan, which was done in good faith, Iserve normal support was 7 days a week. From Iserves old website, it shows normal support was Monday - Friday 9am to 8pm, Saturday 12pm-6pm and public holidays 10am-4pm. You can see this on the Internet Archive website from 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20081217093036/http://www.iserve.co.nz/contactus.php . Even going back to 2006 it has the same support days and times http://web.archive.org/web/20061113234533/http://www.iserve.co.nz/contactus.php
So this was the level of support we expected to be retained as part of the life plan, and is what the majority of other NZ web hosts currently offer as standard. The Lifeplan documentation also implied that support levels would remain the same no matter if the company got sold. This is nothing to do with the gold support which I believe was both TXT (inside the control panel) and phone based via an 0800 number and gave those users 24/7 support after hours.

At some stage well after we had purchased the life plan, and after iserve got sold to Orcon, without any notification, regular hosting support got dropped down to 5 days a week. From the orcon website it states that hosting support is now only 8:30am to 5pm Monday to Friday. This represented a significant change in support levels, and a degradation in service levels from the life plan agreement we initially signed up to. Since then, I believe Gold support has also been dropped, although we didn't get notified of that change. My main concerns with all this is, if we can't contact support due to a problem at the hosting end during the weekend, it is a worry. All hosting providers I use apart from this one, do have some way to get hold of them 7 days a week, and this seems like industry standard for web hosting providers operating in NZ. It is really a requirement these days for business users to have 7 days support (as it was while iserve operated it), and this hosting is marketed as a business grade service.

mattwnz

19389 posts

Uber Geek

#1129493 15-Sep-2014 22:04

adw:
MurrayM:
mattwnz: I am on the same plan as you too. Did you get contacted about the removal of the gold support a year or so ago?

I'm on an iServe LifePlan Plus too. I do remember an email from Orcon saying that the 24/7 support was going to end (I might still have it somewhere if you want me to try to find it).

I was quite miffed at the time as I have a copy of the original LifePlan contract and it says "What's included in iSERVE LifePlan Plus? ... 24x7 Gold Tech Support" and then in the FAQs it says "Q. What happens if iSERVE is sold, or changes management etc? A. The terms and conditions of your iSERVE LifePlan will continue to be honoured for life. We are committed to providing one of the best hosting services in New Zealand, and should iSERVE ever be sold to another company, it will be one that is just as committed to customer service as we are."

When I took up the offer of buying the LifePlan Plus plan I was assured that everything in the plan would be honoured by any future owners, and it clearly hasn't been since Orcon removed the 24/7 Gold Support. I've been waiting for Orcon to decide that the LifePlan's should be totally scrapped, I'm sure that must be on the agenda.

Yep, now they've removed the windows server (yet still seem to be offering it on Orcon). We have over 300 domain names with them but they're not interested. Guess we're all too small fry for them...

I think the only hosting Orcon offer is the Iserve hosting. I believe that they are working on getting the reference to windows removed from the website as per an earlier post.

Not unless you have a link to other Orcon windows hosting? But if they sold other windows hosting it would make you wonder why they were advertising Openhosts windows hosting in their email to all affected customers. So I think you maybe referring to the Orcon / Iserve hosting page which has the incorrect information on it.

adw

175 posts

Master Geek

#1129498 15-Sep-2014 22:11

mattwnz:
adw:
MurrayM:
mattwnz: I am on the same plan as you too. Did you get contacted about the removal of the gold support a year or so ago?

I'm on an iServe LifePlan Plus too. I do remember an email from Orcon saying that the 24/7 support was going to end (I might still have it somewhere if you want me to try to find it).

I was quite miffed at the time as I have a copy of the original LifePlan contract and it says "What's included in iSERVE LifePlan Plus? ... 24x7 Gold Tech Support" and then in the FAQs it says "Q. What happens if iSERVE is sold, or changes management etc? A. The terms and conditions of your iSERVE LifePlan will continue to be honoured for life. We are committed to providing one of the best hosting services in New Zealand, and should iSERVE ever be sold to another company, it will be one that is just as committed to customer service as we are."

When I took up the offer of buying the LifePlan Plus plan I was assured that everything in the plan would be honoured by any future owners, and it clearly hasn't been since Orcon removed the 24/7 Gold Support. I've been waiting for Orcon to decide that the LifePlan's should be totally scrapped, I'm sure that must be on the agenda.

Yep, now they've removed the windows server (yet still seem to be offering it on Orcon). We have over 300 domain names with them but they're not interested. Guess we're all too small fry for them...

I think the only hosting Orcon offer is the Iserve hosting. I believe that they are working on getting the reference to windows removed from the website as per an earlier post.

Not unless you have a link to other Orcon windows hosting? But if they sold other windows hosting it would make you wonder why they were advertising Openhosts windows hosting in their email to all affected customers. So I think you maybe referring to the Orcon / Iserve hosting page which has the incorrect information on it.

They offer a selection of hosting at http://www.orcon.net.nz/work/hosting_plans and Windows was still listed there this afternoon but has now gone - just another example of their disorganisation.

MurrayM

2325 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1129579 16-Sep-2014 07:55

mattwnz: Hi Murray, good to get your input and feedback on this.

The thing is that when we purchased the life plan, which was done in good faith, Iserve normal support was 7 days a week. From Iserves old website, it shows normal support was Monday - Friday 9am to 8pm, Saturday 12pm-6pm and public holidays 10am-4pm. You can see this on the Internet Archive website from 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20081217093036/http://www.iserve.co.nz/contactus.php . Even going back to 2006 it has the same support days and times http://web.archive.org/web/20061113234533/http://www.iserve.co.nz/contactus.php
So this was the level of support we expected to be retained as part of the life plan, and is what the majority of other NZ web hosts currently offer as standard. The Lifeplan documentation also implied that support levels would remain the same no matter if the company got sold. This is nothing to do with the gold support which I believe was both TXT (inside the control panel) and phone based via an 0800 number and gave those users 24/7 support after hours.

At some stage well after we had purchased the life plan, and after iserve got sold to Orcon, without any notification, regular hosting support got dropped down to 5 days a week. From the orcon website it states that hosting support is now only 8:30am to 5pm Monday to Friday. This represented a significant change in support levels, and a degradation in service levels from the life plan agreement we initially signed up to. Since then, I believe Gold support has also been dropped, although we didn't get notified of that change. My main concerns with all this is, if we can't contact support due to a problem at the hosting end during the weekend, it is a worry. All hosting providers I use apart from this one, do have some way to get hold of them 7 days a week, and this seems like industry standard for web hosting providers operating in NZ. It is really a requirement these days for business users to have 7 days support (as it was while iserve operated it), and this hosting is marketed as a business grade service.

I agree wholeheartedly with you! I only mentioned the Gold support because that was what I was used to using, I could ring them up and speak to one of the techs that could actually make things happen, not just a support person who had to go away and talk to a tech. It was great!

If the founders of iServe ever started up another hosting business then I'd switch to them in a heartbeat as they know how to give real support. Orcon seem to only be interested in residential customers who can put up with their phone / internet being out for a few days, and not business customers for whom the smooth operation of their website is crucial.

I don't want to dump on FireEngine as I'm sure he's not personally responsible for the scaling back of support and services, he's just following order. Unfortunately for him he's the public face of Orcon for us and therefore will cop some flack.

mattwnz

19389 posts

Uber Geek

#1129916 16-Sep-2014 13:38

MurrayM:
mattwnz: Hi Murray, good to get your input and feedback on this.

The thing is that when we purchased the life plan, which was done in good faith, Iserve normal support was 7 days a week. From Iserves old website, it shows normal support was Monday - Friday 9am to 8pm, Saturday 12pm-6pm and public holidays 10am-4pm. You can see this on the Internet Archive website from 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20081217093036/http://www.iserve.co.nz/contactus.php . Even going back to 2006 it has the same support days and times http://web.archive.org/web/20061113234533/http://www.iserve.co.nz/contactus.php
So this was the level of support we expected to be retained as part of the life plan, and is what the majority of other NZ web hosts currently offer as standard. The Lifeplan documentation also implied that support levels would remain the same no matter if the company got sold. This is nothing to do with the gold support which I believe was both TXT (inside the control panel) and phone based via an 0800 number and gave those users 24/7 support after hours.

At some stage well after we had purchased the life plan, and after iserve got sold to Orcon, without any notification, regular hosting support got dropped down to 5 days a week. From the orcon website it states that hosting support is now only 8:30am to 5pm Monday to Friday. This represented a significant change in support levels, and a degradation in service levels from the life plan agreement we initially signed up to. Since then, I believe Gold support has also been dropped, although we didn't get notified of that change. My main concerns with all this is, if we can't contact support due to a problem at the hosting end during the weekend, it is a worry. All hosting providers I use apart from this one, do have some way to get hold of them 7 days a week, and this seems like industry standard for web hosting providers operating in NZ. It is really a requirement these days for business users to have 7 days support (as it was while iserve operated it), and this hosting is marketed as a business grade service.

I agree wholeheartedly with you! I only mentioned the Gold support because that was what I was used to using, I could ring them up and speak to one of the techs that could actually make things happen, not just a support person who had to go away and talk to a tech. It was great!

If the founders of iServe ever started up another hosting business then I'd switch to them in a heartbeat as they know how to give real support. Orcon seem to only be interested in residential customers who can put up with their phone / internet being out for a few days, and not business customers for whom the smooth operation of their website is crucial.

I don't want to dump on FireEngine as I'm sure he's not personally responsible for the scaling back of support and services, he's just following order. Unfortunately for him he's the public face of Orcon for us and therefore will cop some flack.

Totally agree. My main point really was that regular hosting support that we signed up to with the Life Plan, and prior to the change of ownership, used to be 7 days and it used to be so good, that gold support in most cases would never be needed. Those were the days when you used to get email relies within a few hours, even during the weekends. I only ever used Gold support once a few years ago when the servers were down, and it went to a third party call centre, where they had to contact the techs to remedy it. Now that appears to have gone, and it seems any outages if they occur during the weekend that we notice, we now have to wait until Monday, which isn't good at all.

What I don't really understand is why their residential support is 7 day support like the web hosting used to be. Now web hosting support has been dropped down to 5 days, when business is more mission critical than residential. I believe these changes to the Life Plan have really devalued it, and it is not the same service we signed up to. The fact that we now can't use windows server, when other hosting providers are able to offer it, is a significant alteration to it. The main advertising of the Life Plan did say 'Never pay for Web Hosting Ever Again'. But those life plan users who need windows, will now have to pay with another provider.

Now that Call plus has purchased them, I wonder what other changes are in the wind? I think they need to contact Life plan users and give us the certainty we need. The majority will be small kiwi businesses who purchased this Life Plan in good faith.

WhiteRabbit

24 posts

Geek

#1131193 18-Sep-2014 09:11

It's really sad to see what's happened to iServe since Orcon gobbled them up. I installed the first Windows 2008 hosting box when I was working there on 09. At the time the plan was to move all the 2k and 2k3 sites onto 2k8. Guess they never carried that through. I get the feeling that all the plans for improvements and expansions were killed shortly after I left. The last thing we managed to do before I went was launch the cloud product - which orcon quickly killed.

Contractually LifePlan and LifePlan Plus have 24x7 support and Windows hosting. I would be lawyering up if I were you.

Ragnor

8085 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1132230 19-Sep-2014 16:15

Contractually LifePlan and LifePlan Plus have 24x7 support and Windows hosting. I would be lawyering up if I were you.

or don't waste your time/money and just move on to a better hosting provider already.

Plenty of good options: OpenHost, SiteHost, Net24 etc

MurrayM

2325 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1132240 19-Sep-2014 16:19

Ragnor:
Contractually LifePlan and LifePlan Plus have 24x7 support and Windows hosting. I would be lawyering up if I were you.

or don't waste your time/money and just move on to a better hosting provider already.

Plenty of good options: OpenHost, SiteHost, Net24 etc

Those of us that plonked down a lot of money to get the LifePlan and LifePlan Plus did so with the idea that we would't have to spend any other money on hosting, we'd get it for free for the rest of our lives. That's what they promised! So I'm not keen to just walk away from it (which I'm sure is what Orcon would like us to do, cos they're not making any money off us) and spend more money with another host.

Ragnor

8085 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1133881 22-Sep-2014 16:42

How much was the lifeplan back in 2006/07 or whenever it came out?

MurrayM

2325 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1134221 23-Sep-2014 07:42

Ragnor: How much was the lifeplan back in 2006/07 or whenever it came out?

LifePlan was $2995, LifePlan Plus was $3995. Existing iServe customers got $200 off those prices. Based on our monthly spend at the time I worked out that we would break even after about three years.

adw

175 posts

Master Geek

#1145772 2-Oct-2014 16:40

MurrayM:
Ragnor: How much was the lifeplan back in 2006/07 or whenever it came out?

LifePlan was $2995, LifePlan Plus was $3995. Existing iServe customers got $200 off those prices. Based on our monthly spend at the time I worked out that we would break even after about three years.

And although that doesn't seem like much now you do have to take into account the cost of other opportunities lost by using that money and the fact that this money allowed/assisted Iserve to be built into the company that was then sold on.

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