And so, after sixteen years, Bytemark has been bought out. In common with rather a lot of other customers (if Twitter is anything to go by), I was a bit saddened to hear about this via The Register rather than an announcement. I don't blame the owners in the slightest - they have every right to cash in on their hard work after sixteen years. And whilst the construction of their own data centre undoubtedly gave them a cost edge over the long term, it no doubt needed to be paid for first.

Unlike other customers, I'm not going to idealise the company's previous state - my nine year happy relationship with them has been based on our dedicated server Just Working for the most part, and me never needing to contact support. On the rare occasions when I have, it's been a mixed experience. Such as the time when my query about adding a .mx domain name to their DNS service got a keyword based response: "your MX records look OK to me". Or even better, the occasion when they managed to e-mail me another customer's control panel password by accident.

I won't be making any sudden moves, and if the founders are to be believed, neither will Bytemark.