Professional Photography Site Digital Railroad Shuts Down Operations
October 29, 2008 — Digitalrailroad.net, a popular website for professional photographers to manage, market, and sell stock imagery was abruptly shut down after giving their customers just 10 hours notice. The Digital Railroad Marketplace was home to millions of stock photos all shot by Digital Railroad member photographers and photo agencies.
Continues @ http://www.cameratown.com
At a minimum I hope this is a lesson for SaaS providers in how not to manage the shutdown of their business, and for potential SaaS customers in the worst case of dependence on a third-party provider and what they can expect if there isn’t a solid plan in place to provide at least a graceful shutdown.
Lack of continued funding for an SaaS provider should never mean an overnight complete shutdown of their infrastructure – there should be a plan in place to provide 30 days of continued support on some level, to help customers get at their data, make new plans, and get out. This seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.