AskMe has temporarily suspended its operations, in the light of not being able to pay its employees and manage other costs running the business. MediaNama sources confirmed that AskMe management has indeed initiated a shutdown. We've written to AskMe for an official statement. MediaNama had also contacted Astro last week and checked for an update yesterday but we still haven't heard back from the company. The shut down follows a limbo that the AskMe and Astro+ management got into after AskMe proposed to buyout its stake from Astro for a supposed $5 million. Despite the shutdown, AskMe's ecommerce website is still live at the time of writing. It's possible that the service might not deliver, although one can still order something. +AskeMe is owned by Getit Infomedia. Astro acquired a 50% stake in Getit Infomedia for around $20 million in 2010. A timeline of what has happened to date: - At the start of this month, unnamed employees at the AskMe Group wrote an open letter to Astro asking it to pay all outstanding dues till July 2016. The open letter came 2 months after there were between 300 to 650 employees reportedly laid off at the company. - About 10 days ago, Manav Sethi, Group CMO & head of digital strategy at AskMe Group told MediaNama that the company did not have enough money to sustain its operations and support its 2,500 strong workforce because Astro was supposed to pay it by 31 July, which did not happen. - Following this,…
