October 10, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — CWIE Holdings (www.cwie.com), which reported on Monday that it would acquire hosting company Alpha Red (www.alphared.com), said Thursday that the deal would not go through as planned. Follow-up on message boards by Alpha Red customers and employees seems to suggest that the company is shutting down.
The company issued a statement on Thursday saying, “the purchase of Alpha Red’s assets could not be consummated notwithstanding considerable effort.”
According to the company, CWIE intends to make no further comment on the deal.
Earlier in the week, CWIE had stepped in to acquire Alpha Red amid concern that the company appeared to be close to closing down, after its chief executive was named in a lawsuit by Microsoft and the state of Washington.
Microsoft’s suit claims Alpha Red CEO James McCreary was also involved in Branch Software, a company that built and distributed illegal “scareware.”
Alpha Red representatives informed hosting message boards last week that the company was in talks to be acquired by CWIE, and on Monday, CWIE confirmed that it had agreed to acquire Alpha Red, and that McCreary would not be involved in the company following the deal.
The deal would have included Alpha Red’s two data centers in Houston, Texas and 300Gps of Internet connectivity.
Late Thursday, an ongoing thread on WebHosting Talk became busy again with discussion of the Alpha Red situation, as customers reported their sites going offline, and difficulty reaching the company.
A user saying he was Jonathan Box, the company’s president of sales made several posts offering to help customers move their servers out of Alpha Red’s Houston facility, and saying “I can’t give a statement with time frames on providers shutting down. I will however recommend you back everything up and start moving to a new host ASAP.”
As of Friday Morning, Alpha Red’s website was still online. Some changes appeared to have been made to the “contact us” page, including the removal of listings for McCreary, Dan Woods, Box and tech support manager Ayanna Ford.
