https://dockets.justia.com/search?parties=Venda%2C+Inc&cases...
We had herman miller aeron chairs and a prime piece of real estate in central london (by the Noel Coward theatre) but had never turned a profit, the Venda application was 2million lines of perl that could "sustain" 1 hit every 30 seconds, so most of my job was maintaining expansive arrays of caching systems.
The upper executives and thick layer of middle management were smarmy and entitled, and the operations staff took it as a challenge and a matter of personal pride to make it work "Smooth seas do not make skilled sailors" was a common motto.
I was once publicly berated for helping a customer on the phone because the management wanted to bill time for what was literally a 30 second change (I did it WHILE on the phone with them).
They do a good job of soaking up all the perl developers in London though.
also, FWIW: they sold the company to someone shortly after I left, it may be better managed now, but I can't be sure.
I can't remember the exact syntax, but I used to find it hilarious that each Venda tag had to have a unique label, and since the code was notoriously difficult to navigate, everyone just ended up using random numbers and hoping that it wasn't used elsewhere.
<venda_something label=5318008>
...
</venda_something>
Powa is Venda's answer to Shopify, trying to capture the smaller market, the software, and the management, was never good enough to compete.