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Want to have some fun? Dave Lehto sent
in this suggestion:
"To review the Weather Community's comments over the summer
when no-one was in the comm. center or when the phone lines got pulled, go to:
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/glimpsedocs/ghldm-users.html
search for Alden or Difax........ change the number of files and matches to
200."
As we don't know how much longer these letters will be posted, here's a few....
I want to echo Gilbert's statement: It is sad that a once great weather company has now officially shut it's doors. Alden provided many years of excellent service to us and many others. The last couple of months not withstanding, they were very responsive to their customers. We dealt with Lorraine Smith on most occasions, and she was always pleasant and responded quickly to our questions and requests. It sounds like many of their high quality employees were also taken advantage of. It seems pretty obvious that the management that took over after the death of Mr. Alden was poor. Our own contact with Mr. Doyle seems to confirm this. I'd like to wish the former employees of Alden good luck in their search for new employment.
Stephen D. Adams Vice President - Research and Development Agricultural Weather Information Service, Inc.
Since what has happened is now final, I'm going to "cease and desist" since many folks on here aren't affected anyway. Once again, by posting these messages, I do not intend to flame Alden, just show the truth which we, their customers, have not been privileged to know about the company. It is sad that a once great weather company has now officially shut it's doors.
I spoke with Alden CEO David Doyle yesterday. I had left a message on his voice mail regarding this whole mess and he returned my phone call. (!) I explained to him the frustration we in the Unidata community were experiencing from the lack of information coming out of Alden regarding their troubles. He explained that the network problems with MCI and their subcontractor last month were real and were unrelated to the company's current financial woes. He also confirmed that the company was undergoing a restructuring that he expected to be finalized yesterday or today, with services continuing. I told him I appreciated this information, but that he needed to directly address his customers with some type of official message. I gave him the ldm-users@unidata email address and suggested he present an official explanation/future plan of action to the forum. I reminded him again that the opinion of the company was now quite low, not so much because they were having problems, but because they had chosen not to communicate with their customers who keep them in business. Hopefully he will do the right thing and contact the list. We'll see. I don't know why so many tech vendors choose the secrecy route when they have problems.