# ColoCrossing / VSNX Starts it's Hostile Takeover of the LOWEND VPS Market



## drmike (Feb 4, 2014)

It's official, ColoCrossing just made an offer for lowend / low priced VPS packages.  This move puts ColoCrossing directly in competition with the slews of VPS companies that rent dedicated servers from CC for selling VPS offers.

The offer is via the Hudson Valley Host brand, which last week was forced to admit to being a CC owned front as far back as to mid 2013.

Offer here:

http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/21201/hvh-99-off-1st-mo-on-all-unmanaged-vps-plans-let-special-50gb-hdd-2gb-ram-2tb-bw-1-ip-7-mo

Don't worry, there is another direct CC house brand (i.e. the parent incorporated entity) with a recently spruced website that prominently features none other than VPS packages on the homepage.


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## Virtovo (Feb 4, 2014)

drmike said:


> Don't worry, there is another direct CC house brand (i.e. the parent incorporated entity) with a recently spruced website that prominently features none other than VPS packages on the homepage.


Oh really?

http://www.velocity-servers.net/


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## Francisco (Feb 4, 2014)

Virtovo said:


> Oh really?
> 
> http://www.velocity-servers.net/


I'm not getting the 'oh really' part >_>

It comes off like you're trying to prove him wrong but then provide the very domain.

Anyway, for a lot of providers they're in a position of "They can't leave CC even if they wanted to

in protest". I've never been happy when a provider competes with their own customers. There's a lot

of markets that we simply stay out of because we know there's users that use our services for

that very thing and would rather things stay good between us than us make a quick buck.

Francisco


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## Aldryic C'boas (Feb 4, 2014)

Francisco said:


> I've never been happy when a provider competes with their own customers.


Pretty much why I've never been in favour of having a reseller system.


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## Virtovo (Feb 4, 2014)

Francisco said:


> I'm not getting the 'oh really' part >_>
> 
> 
> It comes off like you're trying to prove him wrong but then provide the very domain.


Just agreeing; however making it clear that it's not a very large jump to work out which!


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## DomainBop (Feb 4, 2014)

My problem with that LET offer (and the HVH writeups on LEB) is that there should be a disclaimer in the offer stating that HVH is owned by Velocity Servers Inc which also owns LowEndTalk/Box.com

On another note: Maarten and his merry band of thread title changers have been busy again.  The thread "ChicagoVPS support SUCKS!" is now titled "ChicagoVPS Misunderstanding of unmanaged support"


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## Francisco (Feb 4, 2014)

Aldryic C said:


> Pretty much why I've never been in favour of having a reseller system.


I don't think resellers are a big issue since it's on them to figure out their own market.

If CC launched a fully managed, high end (& higher priced) offering that didn't touch LE pricing at any point?

Then I don't think anyone would have a complaint.

It's shitting where you're eating (which I know is funny for me to say given it's me after all) but now

users have to compete with their own DC for a signup. Assuming the equipment is paid off, a single node

probably runs CC $20/m with bandwidth, support, solusvm, & power. It's probably less if Jon got better deals.

Everyone else, though, is going to be in the $75/month+ price backet, depending on if it's colo, etc.

Francisco


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## Aldryic C'boas (Feb 4, 2014)

Perhaps they've simply gotten tired of the middleman drama, and have decided the fastest way to expand in that venue would be absorbing all of their _clients_ that can no longer afford the rent on their gear now that they're having to compete with their upstream.


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## Nett (Feb 4, 2014)

LOL @ CC


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## wlanboy (Feb 4, 2014)

Looks like they push the "everything is totally perfect with CC companies" thing too hard.

They are changing too many topics too fast - it is hard to keep track on the threads I want to follow.

I


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## jarland (Feb 4, 2014)

Oddly I've always been in the camp of...I'm totally alright with a provider competing in the same space as their clients. However, they need to be honest in their dealings and they need to be aware that there will always be others who would be happy to take their clients off their hands should they mistreat their clients due to this.

It's all about trust. I believe it's alright because I believe you shouldn't be dealing with someone you wouldn't trust anyway. Then again, I've never felt a strong sense of competition. When me and Ryan started doing VPS with Catalyst I never even gave a thought to taking sales from all the providers that I appreciated, so maybe I'm just the odd one in the bunch, but I think people should just be able to separate anything that may be a conflict of interest and not let the one impact the other.


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## jenok (Feb 4, 2014)

lol, What a company.


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## bauhaus (Feb 5, 2014)

Suddenly March 2015 makes sense. Maybe his plan is to bankrupt the entire lowend market using price dumping, or at least kick out a few players. I know it sounds crazy, but heck, they look so confident about it, and we all can dream, right? Maybe also explain the IP hoarding.

EDIT: Tinfoil ahead


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## Coastercraze (Feb 5, 2014)

More like control the LE* market and then surprise everyone with a massive price hike.


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## MannDude (Feb 5, 2014)

This isn't new though, is it?

When a company purchases a website like LEB/LET, do you not expect them to use it for their own advantage? The more a CC customer sells, the more their needs with CC grows. It all trickles up. The sites were a business investment when they purchased them.


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## joepie91 (Feb 5, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> My problem with that LET offer (and the HVH writeups on LEB) is that there should be a disclaimer in the offer stating that HVH is owned by Velocity Servers Inc which also owns LowEndTalk/Box.com
> 
> On another note: Maarten and his merry band of thread title changers have been busy again.  The thread "ChicagoVPS support SUCKS!" is now titled "ChicagoVPS Misunderstanding of unmanaged support"


They're changing thread titles all over the place now, to make them more "politically correct", so to say. It's not just limited to ColoCrossing threads. That said, I'm absolutely not happy about this new moderation trend. What's wrong with a [solved] tag?


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## Aldryic C'boas (Feb 5, 2014)

bauhaus said:


> Suddenly March 2015 makes sense. Maybe his plan is to bankrupt the entire lowend market using price dumping, or at least kick out a few players. I know it sounds crazy, but heck, they look so confident about it, and we all can dream, right? Maybe also explain the IP hoarding.


Not really (regarding the March 2015 claim)... many budget providers try to copy what we offer, but we haven't been "low end" (it's a mindset, not a price point) in quite some time.  Some loudmouth fronting a lowqual VM company not even qualifying as competition doesn't really concern us any.


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## drmike (Feb 5, 2014)

jarland said:


> It's all about trust. I believe it's alright because I believe you shouldn't be dealing with someone you wouldn't trust anyway.


No way anyone should be trusting CC and related companies.

Just remember how they STOLE LowEndtalk.com and LowEndBox.com.   Remember how they lied about that for a good portion of a YEAR.

The HVH stuff, that discovery only happened because WHT was on the matter and smelled blood and the victim of a refund refusal wouldn't shut up and go away.   That HVH ownership / "investment" went on for a big chunk of a year.  

Pattern here?

Remember the constant IP grabbing, IP soiling, hosting of unsavory material on their network, failure to address IRAN matters (other than to advise folks to HIDE it better).

It's time CC operates like a normal business because other folks livelihoods are intertwined with it.  Not everyone is a high school child with a pre-tend-a-business.

Just remember, if you are selling and ColoCrossing, ChicagoVPS, etc. is buying take the option of selling outright for cash upfront.  Take a lump sum (even if less) and leave with your reputation in tact, especially if you want to be employed in, or offering products in this or related data segment in the future.


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## Damian (Feb 5, 2014)

Francisco said:


> I've never been happy when a provider competes with their own customers. There's a lot
> 
> 
> of markets that we simply stay out of because we know there's users that use our services for
> ...


Well said; one of our pending suppliers was doing something similar, and when we complained about it, we got talked down to. They seem to have come to their senses though, so it's all good now.


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## AuroraZero (Feb 5, 2014)

drmike said:


> No way anyone should be trusting CC and related companies.
> 
> Just remember how they STOLE LowEndtalk.com and LowEndBox.com.   Remember how they lied about that for a good portion of a YEAR.
> 
> ...


I personally have nothing against a host to utilizes CC network or resources. They are cheap and I realize this fact. The only problem is you are also "getting into bed with the devil" as the saying goes. Once this happens it also sullies your name with their problems. At least it does in my eyes, and it probably does in many others eyes as well.

This being said, I stay away from your services. Yes just for the fact that you utilize those services is enough to drive me away from you. I will not be caught up in their problems at all. It is not something I want to deal with, nor do I want any of  my customers to have to deal with either.

This is a general statement and not directed at any one host in particular.


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## tchen (Feb 5, 2014)

There's a whole lot of bigger fish that are doing the verticals game (in hosting and out of it).  Dunno why it's such an issue - in each of those cases the market is far bigger than the toe-dip that the 'solutions' subsidiary can handle.  In almost all cases, they also don't undercut the existing market by any substantial margin.  

In fact, the economics of it deteriorates the profit margin of the parent company.  The main reason I come across points to it being instigated as a buffer to absorb excess supply in bad times.  In good times, the subsidiary operates more independently and supplies itself from elsewhere too.

Source: analysis of other markets, mainly the solar-wafer manufacturing.  I don't think the hosting industry is that unique.


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## NodePacket (Feb 5, 2014)

Another one of these threads... Whelp.


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## MannDude (Feb 5, 2014)

NodePacket said:


> Another one of these threads... Whelp.


Yeah, that's how I felt too originally, but it's a tame and valid observation so far. Feel free to report the thread if you feel it gets out of hand at any point, and it may see the same fate as other CC related threads. 

Honestly I am not sure why people are even surprised. A company bought a marketplace forum and website. Of course they will use this to directly or indirectly promote their own businesses.


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## tragic (Feb 5, 2014)

I was shocked to see 99% off. I can only imagine what's next.


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## WebSearchingPro (Feb 5, 2014)

tragic said:


> I was shocked to see 99% off. I can only imagine what's next.



We pay you to use our services! We call it... 110% off


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## notFound (Feb 5, 2014)

Oh, so HVH 'came out' hmm.. I miss all the fun stuff on the days I'm too busy to be surfin. ;-(


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## CVPS_Chris (Feb 5, 2014)

drmike said:


> Just remember how they STOLE LowEndtalk.com and LowEndBox.com.   Remember how they lied about that for a good portion of a YEAR.


Can you explain your logic behing it being stolen?


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## dano (Feb 5, 2014)

CVPS and affiliates can attempt an LEB takeover, but I don't think I would be fooled, and have slowed down my VM purchases over the past year. To be honest, I have to check, re-check, and then sleep over buying a VPS now, as I am not sure if it's a real provider, or just another pump-n-dump provide that I will have to fight with later over a "failed to cancel" crap.


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## MannDude (Feb 5, 2014)

CVPS_Chris said:


> Can you explain your logic behing it being stolen?


It wasn't stolen. Somewhere in Australia there is a nice kite-surfing shop partially funded by money used to buy LET/LEB I suspect.







LET/LEB is simply a business acquisition and is ran like one.


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## Nett (Feb 5, 2014)

GVH Colocation is coming!!!!! 100% resold packages from biloh from $29.95/month in BUF* and nowhere else*


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## MannDude (Feb 6, 2014)

Net said:


> GVH Colocation is coming!!!!! 100% resold packages from biloh from $29.95/month in BUF* and nowhere else*


It's possible they bought a rack, or part of a rack for super cheap. Just don't use too much bandwidth


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## stim (Feb 6, 2014)

One thing you learn fast with VPS is that you get what you pay for.


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## Nett (Feb 6, 2014)

stim said:


> One thing you learn fast with VPS is that you get what you pay for.


Another thing you learn fast with VPS is that CC is not good.


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## drmike (Feb 6, 2014)

CVPS_Chris said:


> Can you explain your logic behing it being stolen?


@CVPS_Chris

So you want to go on about the LowEnd sites being stolen?   They were.  It doesn't matter if you and your butt buddy structured a monthly IOU using ad revenue from that site to pay for the site.  Unsure why RETARDS in this industry accept such "deals".    Is this the type of stupidity they taught you in that business school?   How to be slimy, fabricate stories, attempt to discredit people telling the truth and use your use power to control the distribution medium [LET/LEB] to paint sunny pictures of you and your suburban spoiled brat pack... Someone needs to rip the silver a$$ plugs right out of you folks.

If I were Chris Fabozzi, I'd be more concerned with running a legit business, treating my staff right, paying folks, etc.  I told you about this having no employees, all outsourcing, tax status abuse.   You calling the lies about Adam, protecting his privacy.  Tssk,  I think it looks poor to employ hackers, carders and MINORS, especially considering you are an adult.   Seems weird, and ahh yeah shady.    You always hang out with underage boys?


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## GVH-Jon (Feb 6, 2014)

MannDude said:


> It's possible they bought a rack, or part of a rack for super cheap. Just don't use too much bandwidth


+1 but feel free to use all the bandwidth that's allocated to you. Overages are at $0.05 per GB.


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## Virtovo (Feb 6, 2014)

GVH-Jon said:


> +1 but feel free to use all the bandwidth that's allocated to you. Overages are at $0.05 per GB.


Do you offer 95th percentile billing?


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## GVH-Jon (Feb 6, 2014)

Virtovo said:


> Do you offer 95th percentile billing?


We don't do 95th percentile, sorry.


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## drmike (Feb 6, 2014)

^--- Damn, it's a school day, right?  What are you homeschooled?


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## NodeWest-Dan (Feb 6, 2014)

drmike said:


> ^--- Damn, it's a school day, right? What are you homeschooled?


Off topic:

From what I've noticed most high school kids don't go a full day anymore and always have their cell phones out. 

Man when I was in high school it was straight to the principal for having a phone out.


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## drmike (Feb 6, 2014)

When I was in school-  phones had wires.


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## GVH-Jon (Feb 6, 2014)

drmike said:


> ^--- Damn, it's a school day, right?  What are you homeschooled?


My school provides every student with a Macbook Air to use in every class and my study hall period is around lunch. I'm online during spare time. Welcome to 2014.


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## NodeWest-Dan (Feb 6, 2014)

GVH-Jon said:


> My school provides every student with a Macbook Air to use in every class and my study hall period is around lunch. I'm online during spare time. Welcome to 2014.


It's nice what they have now. The tech wasn't there back when I was in school. Pen and paper. That was all you had. 

And a Nokia phone with a chrome faceplate and light up antenna.


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## Amitz (Feb 6, 2014)

When I was in school, important information was sent via Telex and archived as ticker tape. *lol* Good old times...


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## Nett (Feb 6, 2014)

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*Price per Month:* $15.00 *- Now only $8.25 with discount!*
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## Virtovo (Feb 6, 2014)

Net said:


> And...again....
> 
> *V-Enterprise*
> 
> ...


4048 again?


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## drmike (Feb 6, 2014)

Where did the resident high school tycoon make this new offer?

At least the money side isn't $5 like before.  $15 list price   and Chicago is $3 more...


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## mcmyhost (Feb 6, 2014)

drmike said:


> Where did the resident high school tycoon make this new offer?
> 
> At least the money side isn't $5 like before.  $15 list price   and Chicago is $3 more...


http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1346534 I believe


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## tchen (Feb 6, 2014)

drmike said:


> @CVPS_Chris
> 
> ...and ahh yeah shady.    You always hang out with underage boys?



'atta boy!  Show'em how we here fight in these neck of the d'net!


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## MartinD (Feb 6, 2014)

People, grow up. This isn't a GVH thread. Seriously, enough with the dead horse beating. This is getting really old and doing nothing but making this place stink.


Keep it on topic or we'll lock this one up too. Thanks.


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## MannDude (Feb 6, 2014)

I just tuned back into this thread on my break. As Martin said, back on topic, please.


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## mpkossen (Feb 10, 2014)

joepie91 said:


> They're changing thread titles all over the place now, to make them more "politically correct", so to say. It's not just limited to ColoCrossing threads. That said, I'm absolutely not happy about this new moderation trend. What's wrong with a [solved] tag?


I've tried to do that on several occasions by asking people whether they were OK with doing this (I only started asking after the whole world blew apart over me screwing up one thread). They don't respond to these PMs, which is rather unfortunate. I'm going to keep trying this just for a bit, but if it doesn't work I'll just start doing it on my own. I agree, tags like '[RESOLVED]' like on the Ubuntu Forums are the best way to do this. The way we (and others, including Chief) changed titles in the past isn't. Unless, of course, it's requested by the OP.

Over the past two weeks or so, I believe thread title changes have been "logged" in the same thread. Sometimes with an explanation, sometimes not. If you have any threads which have had their title changed "unjustly" the past two weeks, let me know. I'll be glad to clear up those title changes.



drmike said:


> @CVPS_Chris
> 
> So you want to go on about the LowEnd sites being stolen?   They were.  It doesn't matter if you and your butt buddy structured a monthly IOU using ad revenue from that site to pay for the site.  Unsure why RETARDS in this industry accept such "deals".    Is this the type of stupidity they taught you in that business school?   How to be slimy, fabricate stories, attempt to discredit people telling the truth and use your use power to control the distribution medium [LET/LEB] to paint sunny pictures of you and your suburban spoiled brat pack... Someone needs to rip the silver a$$ plugs right out of you folks.
> 
> If I were Chris Fabozzi, I'd be more concerned with running a legit business, treating my staff right, paying folks, etc.  I told you about this having no employees, all outsourcing, tax status abuse.   You calling the lies about Adam, protecting his privacy.  Tssk,  I think it looks poor to employ hackers, carders and MINORS, especially considering you are an adult.   Seems weird, and ahh yeah shady.    You always hang out with underage boys?


You didn't answer his question.

I don't know how everything went in detail, but I believe Scott gave the site to Chief, who turned it into something more profitable, and then sold it to CC. Maybe this was Chief's intention from the start, I don't know. However, I don't think anybody stole anything.


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## drmike (Feb 10, 2014)

Funny, Fabozzi won't touch his entitlement behavior, hanging with minors committing felonies, disregarding privacy regulations, dabbling in tax fraud, etc.  But along comes Kossen.  I hope they are paying you well...

*"I don't know how everything went in detail, but I believe Scott gave the site to Chief, who turned it into something more profitable, and then sold it to CC. Maybe this was Chief's intention from the start, I don't know. However, I don't think anybody stole anything."*

Do the timeline and footwork...

Roughly January-February 2013 Scott handed the sites over to Chief to be operated as a community.  This included paid ahead hosting at Linode.  

Within a week or maybe 2 weeks the big DDoS-a-rama and magically the site was whisked away to ColoCrossing... where the DDoS stopped, even though CC doesn't have the capacity or competency to make such a "large" attack go away.   Cause if they did, they'd be offering such a long time ago.

Here's how the theft happened----  CC contacted Scott about acquiring the sites, prior to the handoff to Chief.   They were told unequivocally NO and go away.    So they backended the deal via Chief and although I can't prove it, dabbled in this monkey foolery of a staged DDoS to mask the take over and put the sites in their hands.

It's theft by deception.   They (Chief + CC) deceived Scott into thinking the sites were being handed off for continued community operation (i.e. NOT for profit whoring).


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## mpkossen (Feb 10, 2014)

drmike said:


> Funny, Fabozzi won't touch his entitlement behavior, hanging with minors committing felonies, disregarding privacy regulations, dabbling in tax fraud, etc.  But along comes Kossen.  I hope they are paying you well...
> 
> *"I don't know how everything went in detail, but I believe Scott gave the site to Chief, who turned it into something more profitable, and then sold it to CC. Maybe this was Chief's intention from the start, I don't know. However, I don't think anybody stole anything."*
> 
> ...


I admire your creativity. However:


You are one year off: http://lowendbox.com/blog/exit0/ (January 2012) 
ColoCrossing is assummed to have taken over in December 2012 (I don't know the details and I honestly never asked), as that's when "jbiloh" approved "SysAdmin"'s membership.
The DDoS attacked happened around April/May 2013 if my memory serves me right.
So, I highly doubt anything was stolen, honestly.


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## Francisco (Feb 10, 2014)

mpkossen said:


> I admire your creativity. However:
> 
> 
> You are one year off: http://lowendbox.com/blog/exit0/ (January 2012)
> ...


Actually I can tell you exactly what went on since I was involved in the initial hand over.


Scott became generally sick of where the community was with things and had spoken to me at least once prior about handing the site over to someone who cared
In January colocrossing contacted him to buy the site but he was not interested
That same month he contacted me about finding someone who cared about the site. While my name was brought up multiple times and I was a good fit, we both wanted the site to be neutral (read: not owned by a hosting company).
At the time Joel & I were good friends and I felt that he gave enough of a crap about the place to treat it right
Joel was brought into the picture and having some back/forths it was agreed to hand him it
Within the first few weeks the site was slammed into the ground with a DDOS attack "forcing it to leave linode" and to colocrossing as they promised tons of ddos filtering (read: a lie because the site was and continues to be ddos'd since its non cloudflare IP is well known)
The original agreement was that Joel would sample CC for a few months before he started to pay for the server
Within those few months is when the site was bought as suddenly the "hosted wtih colocrossing" banner appeared on the site. This is when I figure the site was sold and Joel was put in his figurehead mode
There's multiple additional stories in play with some claiming that CC never paid Joel in full for the site and that Joel was ready to send a lawyer to their offices to pickup some late payments. Then there's the other side of the coin that claims that the amount due was actually a "performance bonus" and that he wasn't entitled to it because the place was being operated so poorly.
The only person that has had any contact with Joel that I know is fiberhub. Everyone else that used to talk to him all got cut off in January of last year.

Francisco


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## mikho (Feb 10, 2014)

Francisco said:


> The only person that has had any contact with Joel that I know is fiberhub. Everyone else that used to talk to him all got cut off in January of last year.
> 
> 
> Francisco


I can confirm this, see him online from time to time on skype but never a response when trying to contact him.


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## MartinD (Feb 10, 2014)

This is going off-topic again..in fact, it didn't get back on topic since my last post. Last request to do so please


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## DomainBop (Feb 10, 2014)

MartinD said:


> This is going off-topic again..in fact, it didn't get back on topic since my last post. Last request to do so please



OK, back on topic, provider moves out of Phoenix, goes to Buffalo...the CC low end marketshare gain continues...


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## Francisco (Feb 10, 2014)

DomainBop said:


> OK, back on topic, provider moves out of Phoenix, goes to Buffalo...the CC low end marketshare gain continues...


I'm surprised by his comments that he was having major issues with the provider. I've honestly never heard any complaints in regards to his setup there so I was a little confused when I saw he moved.

Francisco


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## CraigA (Feb 17, 2014)

I don't even know how this stuff is legal...


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## concerto49 (Feb 17, 2014)

Francisco said:


> I'm surprised by his comments that he was having major issues with the provider. I've honestly never heard any complaints in regards to his setup there so I was a little confused when I saw he moved.
> 
> 
> Francisco


Major financial issues?


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## Francisco (Feb 17, 2014)

concerto49 said:


> Major financial issues?


Thinking that but didn't want to be mean for once.

It's possible it's just too niche of a market.

Francisco


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## shovenose (Feb 17, 2014)

Yeah he probably was offered a too good to be true deal from colocrapping.


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