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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the its-dead-jim dept.

After prolonged service outage, Petnet shuts down, citing coronavirus:

Cloud-connected, "smart" automated pet-feeder system Petnet has had a rough spring. The service not only went offline in February, but all its customer service vanished, too, leaving users in the dark until the company apologized and pushed a patch more than a week later. The service briefly returned for some users but fell off again in March. Now, after weeks of silence, the company is blaming COVID-19 for driving it offline for good—even though its problems started weeks or months before the novel coronavirus became a significant concern.

[...] "Last week on April 14, 2020, we briefed all of our customers regarding one of our third-party connected vendor's inability to fully resource their company and stay functionally online," the message reads. "As of this writing, this situation remains unresolved but we are confident it will be overcome soon."

But due to the exceptional circumstances the COVID-19 pandemic has created, Petnet went on, many of its vendors—largely startups like itself—were "severely and negatively affected in their day to day operations." In short: the funding dried up. Due to a lack of funds, Petnet said, it "re-prioritized and reorganized [its] resources," including:

  • We have furloughed 100% of our remaining staff
  • We have ceased all future product development, including bug fixes
  • We have turned off all non-infrastructure related expenses
  • We have terminated our office lease and are working remotely
  • We have applied for all available CARES stimulus funding

Previously:
(2020-02-28) Petnet's Smart Pet Feeder System Back after Week-Long Outage
(2016-07-30) Cats, Dogs Go Hungry as Internet-Connected PetNet Plays Dead


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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @06:35AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @06:35AM (#988116)

    Pets

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
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    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @07:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @07:07AM (#988119)

    On The Internet.

    Profit???

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 29 2020, @09:50AM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 29 2020, @09:50AM (#988143) Journal

    Dead Pets

    Wanna IoT coffin? Nano-ashes maybe?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 29 2020, @02:17PM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 29 2020, @02:17PM (#988187) Journal
      Better keep that subscription up or the pet might not stay dead.
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 29 2020, @04:09PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 29 2020, @04:09PM (#988224) Journal

        ... or stay dead but evicted back to you.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford