Marketworks Fee Free Weekend November 5-6...

[amy]

Marketworks was done again this afternoon.  Auction picture hosting was also down. 

Letter From the CEO

Dear Valued Marketworks Customer:

As the new CEO of Marketworks, I am extremely excited to be part of the Marketworks team[My salary is very large] and look forward to continued innovation and execution that focuses on the right opportunities to help your business grow. I am well aware of recent performance and stability issues we have experienced and the impact it has on your business. This level of performance is unacceptable [no shit sherlock] and I have spent the last three weeks understanding and working with the team to craft and act on a decisive plan to increase and exceed acceptable service levels for our business. Below are three immediate-term actions we are taking:

Database Upgrade

Performance and reliability: While we have already taken a number of steps to improve performance, we are now upgrading our database server. We have purchased a best-in-class, enterprise-grade IBM server. [One server? You receive a $7.5 million investment and you can only afford one new server?]  Intermittent availability with our current database and its hardware is a core issue impacting your recent experience with Marketworks. We are taking delivery of our new hardware and are working closely with Oracle and IBM to migrate our database to accommodate anticipated holiday volume.

Fireside Chats - Wednesday, November 9, 2005 [Fireside chats?  ]

To improve communication with our seller community and help you better understand our plans, I am instituting what I’m calling “Fireside Chats” with members of the Marketworks team. All Marketworks customers are invited to participate via the Marketworks Forums and directly ask questions of the Marketworks team. The first chat will be held on Wednesday, November 9 at 2:00pm EST and will be hosted by key members of our Product Management, Development, and Infrastructure teams. They will provide insights into the issues you have experienced [I already know the servers are overloaded and crash frequently.  how about some insight into refunding all fees until you can provide a stable service?]:, what we have implemented and what we are planning to implement in the near term to improve site stability and performance. Look for a separate discussion on the Forums home page titled "Fireside Chat".  I hope you will join us.

Fee-Free Weekend November 5 – 6, 2005 [and this is going to make up for the money lost as a result of Marketworks frequent problems over the past several months, how?]
Finally, in appreciation for your continued support and loyalty to Marketworks, I am pleased to offer a weekend free of Marketworks fees on November 5 - 6, 2005. No Marketworks customer will be charged for any storefront transactions or auctions ending between Saturday morning at 12:01am EST and Sunday evening at 12:00 midnight EST. These fees will be credited to your account and will appear in your Billing History by November 15, 2005.

These are just a few of many initiatives we have underway to maximize the quality of service we provide to you. We look forward to helping you grow a profitable business using Marketworks [change that sentence to grow a profitable business despite using Marketworks and it would be more accurate] and on behalf of our entire team, thank you for your continued support. [You're mistaking support with me being stuck with you because I'm unable to afford your competitors.If Infopia or CA Merchant slashed their fees I would leave MW in a flash] If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to contact me directly via this email.

Sincerely,

Ken Powell

CEO, Marketworks