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March 30, 2007 12:03 AM

Broken: NaviSite notification

Navisite_noticeRosie Ruley Atkins writes:

We really liked that our network provider NaviSite "successfully failed over" and then notified us.

They're taking a page from JetBlue, except that we didn't notice any spelling errors in our JetBlue apology.


Comments:

Boy...you just can't trust spell-checker to catch every mistake or grammatical error. It usually helps to proof-read a letter like this before sending it out...

Posted by: ashleyriot_vs at March 30, 2007 01:27 AM

A failover is a valid technical term. It means transferring the active connection automatically from a bad one to a good one. The broken part is that they sent out a letter to the average user who has no clue what a failover is.

Posted by: steelcobra at March 30, 2007 02:30 AM

The effect of that message would be that I'd think twice about using the company. If they can't get a simple memo right, why should I trust them with anything important? No, I'd automatically failover to a competent outfit.

Posted by: Grimm at March 30, 2007 08:28 AM

It's not too broken. They either didn't check it too carefully, or assumed the recipient would know the terminology; they could have made it clearer, but either way not a big deal because you can figure out the meaning from the rest of the paragraph.

Hey! Look! Listen!

Posted by: Fuzzy at March 30, 2007 09:58 AM

Spelling aside, just look at how awkwardly worded the message is. Just take the opening sentence: "The purpose of this communication is to notify you that...". What a waste of words and time. JetBlue does a much better job of getting right to the point and sounding like an actual person. The jargon ('failover') doesn't help either.

Posted by: Zephyr at March 30, 2007 11:34 AM

Failover is a real term that is used correctly here. What makes it funny is that the phrase "successfully failed" appears at the end of the line.

A more common word such as "switched", "changed", or "moved" would have been a better choice here. The spelling errors are definitely broken.

^As for the awkward wording, most memos, contracts, or other business documents do that. I once saw a photo release form titled "2006-2007 Consent, Release, Hold Harmless, and Authorization to Reproduce Physical Likeness".

Posted by: TIBE4ME at April 1, 2007 10:51 PM

Well yeah Jetblue does a better job, Navisite's Income and money to spend on such things as proofreaders for a time-sensitive matter is probaly not even 1/10th of what Jetblue can spend..

Posted by: Infinity306 at April 5, 2007 12:04 AM

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