Newscom Withdraws Digital Railroad Offer
RESTON, VA (November 10, 2008) – The Letter of Intent that Diablo Management received from a potential buyer of Digital Railroad's hardware and software applications has been withdrawn, once again leaving whatever images and photography archives remained on Digital Railroad's servers in limbo.
Newscom managing director Bill Creighton today confirmed that last week's Letter of Intent was from his company, and that Newscom withdrew its offer after an extensive review of Digital Railroad's technology and their financials.
"A lot of it very was very good, but there were also gaping holes that needed to be fixed," Creighton said.
"We looked at what it would take to run it on a daily basis, even after moving it into our data center it was going to need a lot of hand-holding, more than we expected," Creighton told News Photographer magazine.
"And we looked at the customers and there weren't very many of them left. It worked well for individuals, but we didn't know how it would work for agencies. Even for the smaller agencies, Digital Railroad seemed to be their secondary place, not their primary site. They were using Digital Railroad to get their images out to another market. When we peeled it back, there was just not enough coming in to run it profitably."
The Stock Artists Alliance has been in communication with Diablo to try to get assurance that photographers will be paid any money that Digital Railroad owed them for licensing or sales, and to make claims for any money the defunct company owed them.
Allen Murabayashi, PhotoShelter's CEO, told News Photographer magazine today that they have no plans to pursue a deal with Digital Railroad either. During Digital Railroad's meltdown PhotoShelter had offered assistance to the failing company's clients by making available FTP tools and a discounted PhotoShelter membership offer so that photographers could migrate their archives off the dying servers.
During those days it was speculated that PhotoShelter might also be talking with Diablo about buying Digital Railroad's assets, or being in some level of partnership with the company, but those possibilities never developed when Digital Railroad ran out of cash, Digital Railroad's COO and its president resigned, the board of directors resigned, and the bank holding the note on their loan foreclosed.
NPPA Marketplace
- Join the NPPA
- NPPA members receive a wide range of benefits, from educational opportunities to mentoring, exclusive discounts, insurance options, business tips, and much more.