Afrihost will buy majority stake in Cool Ideas

[S.Claus]

I absolutely love how everyone treats this business transaction like they got personally insulted. You telling me you would miss out on a multi-million rand deal to keep a few customers that had a bad experience happy?

PS for that amount I would run you over on my way to the bank.

Edit: Personal opinion is that with the whole BEE hanging over all ISP's heads their making the smart move and getting out the most profit before being forced to comply with BEE rules (potentially losing value per share)

 

[DanielM344]

If our deal with Afrihost included "interfering" we would not have done it.

This sounds very familiar….is this not in broad terms what the Whatsapp founders said about their sell-out to Facebook? And look how that worked out for them….and us…

 

[RedViking]

I absolutely love how everyone treats this business transaction like they got personally insulted. You telling me you would miss out on a multi-million rand deal to keep a few customers that had a bad experience happy?

PS for that amount I would run you over on my way to the bank.

Lol. I am happy for Gian and Cool Ideas. I am not happy for myself when I am gonna need to wait 24 hours to get a response to a ticket and the "call us" button gets hidden in the terms somewhere in 2pt font. .

 

[TheRoDent]

Show pics of the new lambo mkay?

I wish. Basically I now have the money back that I invested when I cashed out my pension funds to invest in starting Neology, and Multisource/RAIN.

 

[TheRoDent]

Lol. I am happy for Gian and Cool Ideas. I am not happy for myself when I am gonna need to wait 24 hours to get a response to a ticket.

Well, you could always just pm me or @PBCool, and get our best !

 

[RedViking]

Well, you could always just pm me or @PBCool, and get our best !

I just insulted @PBCool after reading this Sunday Surprise shock. Will need to give it a week or two first.

 

[TheRoDent]

It sounds like the world is about to end over here. It's one thing if CI and Afrihost were to merge into one company.

This is not the case by the sounds of it. I guarantee probably every single person complaining here would have done the same thing in CI/Afrihost's situation. Give the guys a chance at least.

If things don't work out, there's a million and one isps popping up. Everyone and their grandma runs a ISP these days so vote with your wallet.

"Merging" would also not be something we'd consider.

"Shareholding" is a different matter.

 

[Afrihost-Gian]

Hey Everyone.

First of all let me say that I love Cool Ideas.

But more than just the company Cool Ideas I love the passion (and skill) of their leaders and their team. It is what makes Cool Ideas great.

And I know CI’s clients feel the same love and passion for them.

So I truly understand the fear that may be running through many of you that we are going to come in and change things.

But I assure you that CI will continue to be run by the same legends in the same legendary way.

We’re very excited to partner with them and we would be insane to invest in them and then come in and change what is clearly a winning formula.

We all believe that together we can do great things for the South African internet.

Have a great eve

Gian

 

[RedViking]

Hey Everyone.

First of all let me say that I love Cool Ideas.

But more than just the company Cool Ideas I love the passion (and skill) of their leaders and their team. It is what makes Cool Ideas great.

And I know CI’s clients feel the same love and passion for them.

So I truly understand the fear that may be running through many of you that we are going to come in and change things.

But I assure you that CI will continue to be run by the same legends in the same legendary way.

We’re very excited to partner with them and we would be insane to invest in them and then come in and change what is clearly a winning formula.

We all believe that together we can do great things for the South African internet.

Have a great eve

Gian

Enjoy rest of you Sunday evening. I am sure you having a lekker big braai party tonight.

 

[Johand]

This will be interesting. And merging backend networks can bring a lot of synergies/savings. As long as service doesn't yoyo like Afrihost's (the cycle of "they are awesome" , "they suck" , "they are awesome" is very frustrating). I am a client of both - CI for my fibre and Afrihost for LTE.

I guess the unspoken elephant in the room is that a big BEE deal must be done soon and I think this setup will help a lot with that.

 

[Splinter]

We built this from a small, independant ISP, the first ISP to be on Vumatel to where it is now. As you say, our "difference" is what's made the "difference". And we're Cool with that. And we don't want top stop doing that.

I was responsible for RAIN, back in the day, I apologise profusely. Working with Andre and Paul has changed my life. For the better. And networking, for the better. And internet for the better.

We were the first ISP to offer month-to-month, uncapped, unshaped internet on Fibre. And we won't change that.

Thank you for this honest, and really insightful post. Which is what has made you chaps the best, imo. A few problems here, and deliberate attacks on your network there, I, and a I think a lot of others, stuck with you because of this personal feedback.

I guess we just worried that you will become another faceless entity, with only access to a clueless call centre.

 

[grapjas]

What a shame.

I will be moving. I've been through AfriHell previously and even if CI run independently I will don't want to add my couple of rands to Afrihosts income.

 

[neoprema]

Afrihost and Cool Ideas will run and operate as separate entities.

So did Facebook and Whatsapp.....

 

[RedViking]

What a shame.

I will be moving. I've been through AfriHell previously and even if CI run independently I will don't want to add my couple of rands to Afrihosts income.

Or you can invest/buy shares into Afrihost and PBCool if possible and then turn those couple of rands into dollars.

 

[TheRoDent]

I'm referring to you actually being a shareholder and adding value to CISP, Afrihost on the other hand will just want their profit share and to direct you in the future when they see fit ie not adding value.

That's not the way we see it as shareholders, that they just want profit, and if it was the case, trust me. I wouldn't have done a deal.

Of course, all shareholders want profits. That's kinda the norm right? Even on the JSE.

I mean, why would we have a company that's not profitable ? Could be #eskom.

 

[TheRoDent]

Maybe my Afrikaans is hampering me here, "Invested" in the sense that me as a client is paying for a service and so all the other 10's of or 100's of thousands of client "invested" their money into the CISP idea to help the business grow. Surely the two goes hand in hand.

Maybe my Afrikaans is also letting me down again if I read your comment "but at the end of the day, it's really being a client" confuses me a bit that you possibly think we are just a clients and had no hand in the success of your business if we didn't support it. I guess I'm just reading it wrong.

I'm not fighting here, my original comments relates to people calling this as a sell-out and I gave my opinion, right or wrong in your eyes about it.

Does being a client mean you have an "investment" in a company? Of course, our clients have a hand in the success of our business. If we did things poorly, we wouldn't have clients. If we did things well, we would have clients.

Does that mean you are an investor? By paying for a service that the company provides ?

Does paying your Vodacom bill make you an "investor"?

 

[Splinter]

That's not the way we see it as shareholders, that they just want profit, and if it was the case, trust me. I wouldn't have done a deal.

Of course, all shareholders want profits. That's kinda the norm right? Even on the JSE.

I mean, why would we have a company that's not profitable ? Could be #eskom.

lol. Yes. You only start a business to make money. That's why I have been saying no-one should begrudge you chaps for actually making money from your venture.

We just sad that it might become another "you-just-a-little-bit-of-money" kind of organisation. I forget how many folks I recommended to CISP for having the opposite inclination.

 

[Reaper1242]

Hey Everyone.

First of all let me say that I love Cool Ideas.

But more than just the company Cool Ideas I love the passion (and skill) of their leaders and their team. It is what makes Cool Ideas great.

And I know CI’s clients feel the same love and passion for them.

So I truly understand the fear that may be running through many of you that we are going to come in and change things.

But I assure you that CI will continue to be run by the same legends in the same legendary way.

We’re very excited to partner with them and we would be insane to invest in them and then come in and change what is clearly a winning formula.

We all believe that together we can do great things for the South African internet.

Have a great eve

Gian

The fear isn't that you'll change things. If they change for the better have at it.
The fear is we'll get the same crappy service we left AH for in the first place. And you can say you won't change anything but there is a very long list of companies that changed after being acquired despite claims it would never happen.

Sorry dude but go take a walk through the social comments and see the overall negative response. Then ask yourself how you managed to kill so much trust that the very mention of this makes people want to jump the CISP ship simply by association to AH.

 

[Sinbad]

The fear isn't that you'll change things. If they change for the better have at it.
The fear is we'll get the same crappy service we left AH for in the first place. And you can say you won't change anything but there is a very long list of companies that changed after being acquired despite claims it would never happen.

Sorry dude but go take a walk through the social comments and see the overall negative response. Then ask yourself how you managed to kill so much trust that the very mention of this makes people want to jump the CISP ship simply by association to AH.

Agreed.

After the absolute bare-faced lies Afrihost told me (many years ago) I have zero trust in their integrity. If I were still a CISP customer I would now be looking for another provider, with a very heavy heart.

 

[neoprema]

to be fair i haven't had a major complaint against Afrihost, although I don't use them personally we use them for a community place's connection.

My only gripe is that you can be someone who's worked in IT and with network equipment for 16 years and tell them "our internet is down, I can ping my router its up, and the CPE is up but I can't traceroute past your gateway" and you'll get a response like "Please restart your Wi-Fi router" and I want to drink all the Vodka in the house and pull my hair out with a pliers.