To Our Valued Customers,
Greetings!

You have no doubt learned that in the past week, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) initiated legal action against Questronix arising from the recent crash of its servers that resulted in the interruption of services to its members.
GSIS also initiated a libel suit against our President.

In due time and before the proper forum, Questronix will demonstrate that it is not responsible for the damage suffered by GSIS and its members. The crash suffered by the GSIS servers on April 2, 2009 was unfortunate. Records will show, however, that even before GSIS informed Questronix of the crash, we rushed to the GSIS site to lend assistance. Through the weeks that followed, Questronix and concerned vendors including SAP, IBM and EMC, collaborated to restore the affected servers and trace the source of the crash. For its part, Questronix, even after the lawsuit was filed, provided
24 x 7 technical on-site support to GSIS and also provided loaner hardware – all in an effort to minimize the ill effects of the crash and to avoid any future recurrence of the problem. In the middle of May, the cause was isolated; a special build was made and installed; and to date, the GSIS servers have been up, leading us to believe that the matter has been adequately dealt with from a technical standpoint.

We stress that the support we extended to GSIS forms part of our mission to prioritize our customer’s needs especially in challenging times. It is our strong belief that episodes such as the one experienced by GSIS are best dealt with by cooperation and collaboration rather than finger pointing and legal action.

Nevertheless, given the public pronouncements of GSIS, we are prompted to reply briefly to some of the issues raised.

GSIS has alleged that we provided them with a defective solution, that is, IBM’s DB2 software. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bid documents reveal that it was GSIS that specified DB2 as the database software it chose to procure as part of the project. In other words, neither IBM nor Questronix prompted the adoption of the DB2 software or proposed its inclusion as part of the project – GSIS was solely responsible for that.

GSIS holds Questronix (and IBM) responsible for the interruption of service to its members caused by the crash. Needless to say, uninterrupted system availability of critical infrastructure is the responsibility of GSIS – not its suppliers or contractors. If GSIS had invested in a disaster recovery site, service disruption would have been minimized, if not entirely avoided. The fact of the matter is that corrupted back-ups made by GSIS only further delayed the restoration process and exacerbated the service interruption suffered by GSIS members. At the very least, disaster recovery services would have ensured the integrity of routine back-ups and contributed to the restoration of services. The failure of GSIS to provide the same is entirely its fault.

Incidentally, the DB2 special build provided to GSIS was done despite the fact that Questronix was not legally or contractually bound to do so. The record will show that GSIS unilaterally terminated the maintenance contract covering its DB2 installation. At all relevant times, the vendors collaborating to assist GSIS did so in the spirit of good will and to prevent further inconvenience to GSIS and its members. It is unfortunate that our efforts were repaid with lawsuits.

Finally, our President at no time engaged in libel against GSIS. In the first place, the allegedly libelous statements made by our President were not made in public but in private communications addressed to GSIS. Secondly, since GSIS is a public institution, there can be no libel unless GSIS can show that our President acted with a reckless disregard for the truth or with actual malice – neither of which was present. The letters were made in response to GSIS Counsel’s formal correspondence and represented not the President’s personal views but that of the corporation’s.

We reiterate that Questronix acted responsibly in this situation – addressing the concerns of GSIS in a timely fashion and collaborating with them to restore service to their members. While we regret the action taken by GSIS, we shall vigorously defend ourselves in the proper forum and at the proper time.

We reaffirm our commitment to you, our customers and partners, and reassure you that this isolated incident does not in any way reflect our professional integrity and technical competence. More importantly, we will not waver in our pursuit to provide proven worldclass IT products and services to the business community.

Sincerely,

Angelo R. Balili
Chairman & CEO
Questronix Corporation