Comments on: Delphi Classics: Back in Business?

By: DLJ

DLJ — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 16:18:03 +0000

I’ve also emailed them pointing out that I can supply Paypal receipts rather than the order emails, but I didn’t get a direct response to that.

Delphi also told me that Updates weren’t guaranteed to keep occurring in the future because it was an expensive exercise, so whether the updates are doomed in the long run I don’t know?

By: Alexander Inglis

Alexander Inglis — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:01:27 +0000

It’s hard to point fingers at the hosting company since Delphi owns and is responsible for the data. It’s not enough to think you have backups; these need to be tested and confirmed regularly. Imagine if VISA had a server crash and couldn’t recover customer records, relying on customers to send in an old email reference to prove they’d paid their bill ….

By: Dan Eldridge

Dan Eldridge — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:30:43 +0000

Alexander – That’s exactly what surprises me the most about this whole ordeal. As Palinurus rightly pointed out above, a very unfortunate thing did happen to Delphi, and they have done a very good job of whipping a new site into shape very quickly. They seem to be on the ball. But then, how is it possible that their data wasn’t backed up anywhere aside from their main server?

Perhaps it’s the hosting company’s fault—maybe they suggested to Delphi that their data was backed up in multiple locations when it really wasn’t? Who knows.

By: Alexander Inglis

Alexander Inglis — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:24:55 +0000

It’s astonishing that anyone seriously in the online business does not have tested failsafe procedures for company records. How do they plan to comply with local business laws (such as taxation)? Plus, presumably there would be a record of every sale they made through Amazon? Bad things happen to people (and companies) sometimes but in this day and age not to have secure near real-time backups of customer accounts is quite shocking.

By: Magnus

Magnus — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:39:23 +0000

I had a look a look at the Delphi Classics website when reading this and although it looks like a nice enough webshop, the selection of ebooks made me wonder why one wouldn’t choose gutenberg.org instead. Lots of classics there but of course free of charge since the rights to these authors works have expired.

Just wondering …

By: Palinurus

Palinurus — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:21:25 +0000

Personally, I’m inclined to cut them some slack – after all, they’ve just had basically the equivalent of their whole offices and warehouses going up in flames through no fault of their own, and I’m sure everyone would be more than a bit shellshocked if that happened to them. Under those circumstances, I think they did an excellent job getting the site up again so quickly, and I get the feeling they’re doing the best they can to repair the damage. I’ve never had any but the very best experiences with Delphi Classics myself and so far I see nothing to seriously shake my confidence in them – maybe things might have been handled even more smoothly in an ideal world, but we are all human after all, and everyone would reel under the impact of such a major desaster happening to them. Again, considering this, I think they are handling things very well and remain one of the best e-book stores around.