iiNet to buy Internode: Tis the season to be jolly, so why is everybody so sad?
Monday, December 26th, 2011
With the dust settling around the buyout of Internode by publicly listed rival iiNet, there’s a lot of hostility surrounding the shock announcement. As soon as the news broke, I was on forums, tech journals, and even social media. Amidst the shock and awe, there was another almost unexpected sentiment; unbridled anger from the customers.
Almost anywhere you looked, there was an outpouring of what I can only describe as grief at the loss of the last, great privately owned ISP in Australia. As I drove home that evening, I couldn’t help but wonder at the reason behind all the negative feeling.
Having been a customer of both Internode and iiNet, I’ve experienced first hand what both companies have to offer, and from a long term customer I can only see the move as a positive benefit no matter what angle it’s approached from.
Both companies are customer centric, each winning awards for their service oriented approach to doing business. Indeed, in the majority of polls within the Australian telecommunications industry, Internode and iiNet are commonly found in first and second place. From a purely service approach, the two companies could not be a better match.
But Internode doesn’t bring just it’s award winning service and customer base to the table. Internode has spent years building a national network focussed on speed and reliability, and a significant presence in regional and rural Australia – including some of the only investment in the Northern Territory outside of Telstra.
The majority of the negative sentiments seem to be aimed squarely at Internode founder and managing director, Simon Hackett. Indeed, some customers seem to feel personally slighted by the actions. As a managing director, he has often put himself directly in the public firing line on business decisions and this instance is no exception. But this decision while certainly surprising in the timing has been a long time in the making.
It’s no secret that iiNet and Internode began in similar circumstances, and it was their differing choices (iiNet becoming a public company, Internode remaining a private entity) that set the course of their respective futures. If anybody was going to buy Internode, it was surely going to be Michael Malone. Indeed, the friendship between the two directors can only be seen as a good thing, as there is an established respect for the business practices and strategies of the respective companies.
As I delved deeper in to the reasons why customers might be upset with the decision to merge Internode in to the iiNet family, one reason jumped out at me again and again. “I don’t want to be an iiBorg.” At the end of the day, with the spectre of the NBN looming, Internode was at a critical crossroads. Consolidate, or face the prospect of folding without any choice or say in the matter. Given the alternative, of not having this visionary ISP in the marketplace, or worse facing a radically changed Internode owned by one of the other major players, I know which choice I’d take. Give Simon a little trust, I think he’s banked enough by now to have earned it.
-Bob
The preceding piece is the opinion of the author only, and does not represent the position of Warcom.
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