A great open letter to IslandTel by Peter at Reinvented.net. As a member of a company in exactly the same scenario, I won't shed any tears for IslandTel if they can't leverage 100 years of monopoly to provide adequate service at competitive prices.
sponsoring the local gold cup and saucer parade is no excuse
Posted by on Sunday, May 20, 2001 - 7 comments
Comments
Nicholas Burka - May 20, 2001 11:50 pm
preach on brotha...
Peter Rukavina - May 24, 2001 7:09 pm
New developments. See here.
Steven Garrity - May 24, 2001 7:29 pm
Thanks Peter. Keep us posted. The letter is now posted at the silverorange website as well.
BTW Peter, I'm glad to see that you have added a LINK TO THIS feature on reinvented.net. Expect more links from aov.
Matthew - May 25, 2001 4:07 am
"As a member of a company in exactly the same scenario, I won't shed any tears for IslandTel if they can't leverage 100 years of monopoly to provide adequate service at competitive prices."
Silverorange has had 100 years of monopoly? You guys are barely 100 collectively.<P>
P.S. Man, these text boxes we make you write in are small. We are totally screwing you, the user.
Steven Garrity - June 22, 2001 10:50 am
Peter get's a response from IslandTel.
What's else is a big clumsy company going to say?
About the "internet":
<blockquote class="smalltext">Do we understand it? We believe better than anyone else. Do we have areas to improve? Absolutely.</blockquote>
Isaac - June 22, 2001 1:54 pm
<blockquote><i>Finally, to your point about our relationship with Islanders. We want to make clear that we never have nor will we ever ask or expect Islanders to do business with us because we are from here. </i></blockquote>
I'd just like to say, that in a meeting a few years ago (so that can be their excuse), I was at a Island Tel thingy where they were trying to sell us on something, and took part in the following exchange.
<dl>
<dt>Our question<i>*</i>:
<dd>"Why should we pay you more for your product X when we can get it cheaper from a provider in Ottawa at no differance to us"
<dt>Actual Response<i>*</i>:
<dd>Well they don't sponser the gold cup and saucer parande do they?
</dl>
There are a few other trolls on AOV that can attest to this as well.
<br><i>*<font size="-2"> - May not have been actual phrasing, but it is pretty damn close.</font></i>
D James - June 22, 2001 5:55 pm
My Personal Favourite Island Tel Response:
When asked what would happen with regard to price if one was to use only one component out of the many in their famouns e-commerce packages, they replied - "The price would go out the window".
We don't know what "out the window" means but from the flailing arms that illustrated the statement we took it to mean it costs a lot more. More fore less.... interesting concept.