I build and maintain websites for a living. If I had clients that were prestigious yet relaxed about the site going down for days at a stretch, my stress levels would be lower.
For every site I manage I have a remote monitor that checks it every 10 minutes and sends me an email if it’s unreachable for any reason. I assume that anybody that charges people money for the service is doing something similar, will know about an outage before the client does, and will respond appropriately.
That would appear to be sensbile.
In the interim, though, I’m not sure that the criticism being leveled at Naim is justified. Nobody here understands the issue with the hosting company, nor do they know the contractual terms between that company and Naim. It’s therefore all (rather unhelpful) conjecture.
One of my sons worked for a while on web support, and the team had 24-hour availability 365 days a year. Even though it was only a small business, out of hours they had two on-call people at any one time. Whenever it was his turn he had to have his laptop and work phone with him wherever he went, and not go anywhere out of mobile signal range for more than a few minutes. He had direct contact numbers for others in the team in case anything cropped up that he couldn’t deal with for any reason. He didn’t enjoy things like interrupting eating Christmas dinner to take a call and then go and spend 3 hours fixing something, as happened once, though the financial compensation was good.
That is not what I’d expect Naim to do at all - but I would expect it of any half decent web hosting company serving commercial businesses.
All very sensible for an online business. Naim isn’t and I doubt that kind of contingency cost profile would have made sense.
Anyway, all conjecture as I said above, and we know nothing about the hosts contractual obligations or the cause and extent of this failure.
Hey LTF,
I think that from the customer’s point of view, the website going down is solely the responsibility of Naim. They don’t give a monkey’s what the cause is, nor the arrangement between Naim and the host etc.
For them, Naim’s website is down, it’s the responsibility of Naim. The buck stops there.
Yes I remember one specific Christmas day about a decade back. I was on call and spent 18hrs on the same Zoom for a customer that had something critical “blow up”. It happens. But then I doubt Naim pay $2 million/year in support fees.
I understand the site isn’t mission critical. But basically a week down is utterly taking the piss and no excuses. Even if a vendor is at fault, there’s also whoever selected the vendor and the support tier.
Most companies I’ve worked for have summarily dismissed people for less.
Just applying some context, that’s all.
I’ve just checked in with Naim. Latest word from France is that it’s still being worked on but still no resolution to the issue. Sorry I can’t give any more detail than that.
It is appearing on other social or should I say unsocial media . I am saying it’s the external provider
I’ve a vague recollection that this happens yearly or bi-yearly around this date with this website.
Late payment 
Poor old Naim, can get away with nothing with you lot!
Over on the (now defunct) Auralic forum there was a big hullabaloo about the website going down, with people acting like the company was going to fold!
get a grip guys!
.sjb
The funny thing, in the near 30 years I’ve owned Naim kit, I’ve never once looked at the website, nor any similar manufacturer sites, unless I’ve managed to lose a manual and need to download it. It’s just not my source of information. I trust my dealer on that, and a search among the likes of this forum. But I may be unusual. I’m the same with cars though.
Indeed. The point some us are trying to make, though, is that nowadays it is taken as read that every business of any size will have a decent website and will regard it as a non-negotiable priority to maintain it and keep it current. It shows the company’s wares, encourages the impression that the business is secure and offers a go-to source of information - contact details, downloads etc. That the site is unavailable is one thing, and I think it is a serious commercial issue. That there isn’t a ‘splash’ screen to reassure folk that the matter is known, is temporary, is unavoidable and is being addressed as a matter of urgency does concern me somewhat, not least in the light of another change in ownership. Everyone on here will, understandably, want to cut Naim the maximum amount of slack, me included, but with each day that passes the situation becomes more difficult to understand.
I don’t suppose I look at the Naim website much, nor at those for cars. I take for granted that such businesses all have modern, slick, available websites though from which I can obtain information should I choose to seek it there.
Richard Dane’s comments offer some reassurance though.
That does sound a tad puzzling.
But this one is working ..
Is that the vacancy for the Website Manager. 
Haha, no it’s for the next sous chef .. an army marches on its stomach.
I can’t understand how the senior Naim guy (Cedric something or other) is letting this happen. Maybe he has moved back to France to do something different and Focal has forgotten about Naim.
