Don't get me wrong. I am delighted for Nick. He started something, saw it through, fought for it, turned it into something great and, hopefully, has just sold it for many millions. He deserves to live the dream. Even if they tell Nick to go buy a surfboard and take a long vacation, he has still achieved what most of us can only dream about.



However, reality bites !



Oakley Capital have now owned Plesk for a bit over a year and have worked with, and got to know their staff, so who do you think they are going to go ask for an opinion if Nick sits down in the boardroom one day, and wants to divert some profits to reinvest in a new feature. I am sorry but this is just basic human instinct, and even if the idea is revolutionary, what are the chances of the Plesk guys endorsing it?



Have you wondered what they could do to the industry as a whole in the short term. They now control both the major web hosting server control panels - they could inflate prices at will, and we the customers would have no choice but to pay those inflated prices and pass them on to our customers because there will be nowhere else to go for similar feature rich software. Of course, somewhere down the line something would come up to fill the void that the market has created, but in the meantime, most of the small and specialist and boutique web hosts will have gone bankrupt and given up, further reducing the choice that the public have to the huge hosting companies that would be the only ones left.



I am also curious to know how this is going to affect the relationship between cPanel and Cloudlinux, or will they be the next acquisition on the Oakley radar ? The Oakley mission statement says it all:



We invest in companies undergoing, or in need of, major change in order to achieve a significant step change in profitability.



They seem to be intent on acquiring as much of the web hosting sector as they can get their hands on. Perhaps the UK competition commissioners are too busy managing the train wreck of Brexit to notice what one of its investment companies is up to :-



Oakley Capital Limited. A limited company registered in England and Wales (company number 04091922) with its registered office at 3 Cadogan Gate, London,SW1X 0AS. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (number 195029)



How often have we all seen the disasters that befall Tech companies when they become controlled by financiers who neither share the vision nor the passion for the tech product, but only appreciate the dividend ?



So I raise a glass in congratulations to Nick, and mourn another nail in the coffin of software independence, innovation and respect for the end user. I can only hope that Nick does not rue the day he entered into this deal, and that he will always remain in a position to be able to take back the control of the company when it has inevitably been run into the ground by those seeking ever increasing dividends.



[/end-rant]