Users of sophisticated online solutions have a right to solid, working, reliable products—but the reality is that not everything works as expected, all the time. Take Microsoft Word, for example: Now here's a program that has been developed by an army of programmers, over decades, funded by one of the most profitable software companies of all time. But have you ever had MS Word crash while you were writing a document? Many people can answer "Yes." So in addition to figuring out how to write software that is truly reliable, the challenge also lies in how the vendor responds when stuff doesn't work quite like it should.

When a customer needs help, our approach is to immediately elevate the issue to the top of the priority list if warranted—even if it means literally dropping everything we're working on in order address the need promptly. Sometimes it's a simple thing; other times its complicated. The quality of our products when they roll out the door helps ensure that we're not overwhelmed by Customer Support requests. But when a call comes in, we have the bandwidth to address it promptly and effectively. Users of our solutions will invariably attest to our willingness to help—quickly, effectively, responsibly, and with a single-minded focus on resolving the issue.

We genuinely feel that our customers deserve that level of support. Most will gladly attest to our responsiveness and the urgency we give to Customer Support issues when they arise.

A real-world server farm like the ones that support our products and services in Louisville, KY and Atlanta, GA

Although we're based just north of Boston, MA we operate our products and services on a server farm located in Louisville, KY which is backed up onto another server farm in Atlanta, GA. Why do we do this?

First, our Internet connectivity is first-class, direct backbone-connected technology with redundancy at all levels including routers, servers and failover management (if a server fails then there's another server ready to step in and provide the same services). End users sometimes take this level of redundancy for granted—until things go wrong and suddenly they can't connect to a server. We rely on Birch Communications of Atlanta, GA to provide these services. Our approach is (and has always been, since 2002) to offer a level of technology that can provide 99.999% uptime for our servers—even though it's expensive.

Second, we know that the northeast is subject to occasional weather catastrophes that hack power lines for hours, or even days. And the southern-most parts of the country are vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms that threaten electricity and lines of communication.

Certainly there is no "magic bullet" solution to natural catastrophes that can affect Internet service—and we don't pretend to provide that level of security. But for the most likely threats to service, we provide a solution that has stood the test of time over the last 14 years.

There is simply no substitute for solid, reliable, dependable, redundant infrastructure.