Posted by Case (Ranked on Ladder) on March 20, 2002 at 23:36:06:
Hello all,
I figured it would be a good time to give everyone an update on where Case's Ladder is headed over the next couple months.
As many of you know (or have experienced) our servers have been slow sometimes at peak times of the day. We simply have been growing too fast! We're working at bringing online 4-5 new machines in the next few weeks. I don't have a firm date on this because we are waiting for delivery and configuration of the new servers.
The new servers are a lot more powerful than what we're running now. More importantly, we are moving our equipment to a new hosting facility. In three to four weeks we have to move over everything to AT&T. That's a name you're all familiar with, and we will have ten times the bandwidth once we're moved!
We're also working on our new server setup, which allows us to add extra servers to help handle additional traffic. We've been testing this on the tourney servers and it's working out pretty well. Now we are just going to throw more muscle at the problem.
Next, and most importantly, we are hiring more full time staff. We've been interviewing programmers for the past couple weeks. Our first new hire is starting on Monday! In total, we will be hiring five new people who will be working from our Seattle offices. Three of these people will be programmers who will help us implement new features and fix bugs. Another will be hired in support to beef up things there. And finally we'll be bringing on a business development person (to help us work with online services to get extra rooms, links, etc).
Another great advancement is the launching of the beta test of Case's Ladder Online (CLO). CLO will allow us to offer you a place to play your favorite classic games right on Case's! We're launching with Spades and will add support for additional games as we move throughout the year. There will be some great features (such as automated reporting) that aren't available anywhere else.
I'm very excited about the direction things are going. With the new servers, faster connection, and more help we're going to be able to do some great things over the next year. It's all because of the loyal support of our premium members, thanks so much for your continued faith in Case's Ladder!
Thanks,
Case