Tag Archives: Rackspace Hosting

B2b, B2C, Cloud Hosting, Hosting, Internet, Secure Hosting

Businesses Would Love To Never Have To Buy Another Server Again

Rackspace Hosting, the world’s leader in hosting and cloud computing, has announced the results of its latest survey, which highlights the growing problem of businesses struggling to cope with the demands of managing their own servers. More than half of the businesses surveyed responded that they would ‘love to never have to buy another server again.’

Rackspace’s online survey research was conducted in September 2009 and involved 441 US and UK-based IT decision-makers at companies with 100-500 employees

The research underscores Rackspace’s recent launch of No More Servers, a campaign and community dedicated to a new way of buying IT which includes managed hosting, cloud computing and email hosting. The new service has been created to help free businesses from the hassle of in-house server management and to enable them to instead shift their focus onto mission critical applications, core competencies and innovation. Rackspace is augmenting this initiative with Rackspace.co.uk/NoMoreServers, a location for companies to learn the benefits of hosting services.

The study, conducted by LoudHouse on behalf of Rackspace, investigated the views of more than 441 IT managers at mid-size enterprises and revealed that approximately one third of their IT staff’s time is spent on server management, which is liable to limit their ability to focus on strategic initiatives that could benefit the business. Fifty eight percent of respondents cited the ‘hassle of managing servers’ as a challenge for their organization, while 61% of IT managers said ‘time to drive innovation’ was a challenge.

Additionally, on-site servers were seen to also cause ‘server stress’ for IT managers, who cited ‘the need to be available 24×7’, ‘hardware issues and maintenance’, and ‘after-hours calls and issues’ as the top three server management issues. The survey also found that 51% of respondents have made mistakes in their server capacity planning. Fifteen percent have bought too many servers and 36% have failed to buy enough. This leaves businesses exposed to the risks of financial waste and the inability to cope with user demand by not getting server spending right the first time.

The survey also revealed that 35% of companies identify themselves as ‘proactive and slightly ahead of the curve’ when it comes to describing their approach to new technologies, while 28% remain ‘cautious and reactive.’ When it comes to hosting and cloud computing, barriers to adoption include assurances of reliability (29%), evidence of cost savings (28%) and assurances of security (27%).

“IT should be an enabler,” said Lanham Napier, president and chief executive officer of Rackspace Hosting. “The survey seems to reveal that a huge chunk of time and resources are spent keeping the lights on and preventing problems. Rackspace, with its world class Fanatical Support, can free organizations from the hassle of server management and enable their IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives that will positively impact the business.”

Via EPR Network
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Advertising, B2C, Cloud Hosting, Hosting, Internet, Secure Hosting, Video

Rackspace Hosting Announced That Leading Viral Video Advertising Agency, Keta Keta, Will Be Hosting Its Video Portfolio In The Rackspace Cloud

Rackspace Hosting (NYSE:RAX), the world’s leader in hosting and cloud computing, has announced that leading viral video advertising agency, Keta Keta, will be hosting its video portfolio and movie previews in the Rackspace Cloud.

Ronen Lefler, CEO, Keta Keta said: “Effectively showcasing our viral videos has become a real challenge as the amount of content that we have to stream has grown. Moving to the Rackspace Cloud has enabled us to showcase videos to a global audience without interruption. We chose Rackspace due to its focus on customer service and support, as well as the flexibility and efficiency of The Rackspace Cloud Files solution.”

As the viral video market continues to explode, with traffic increasing 178% over the last 12 months (Source: Econsultancy’s 2009 Internet Statistics report), Keta Keta needed to maximize opportunities across consumer brands by promoting its videos to a global audience. It launched a new corporate website in March 2009 to support this need and turned to Rackspace Hosting to provide a reliable and cost-effective hosting solution to stream multiple movies to over 100 different countries.

Brian Thomson, EMEA Managing Director at Rackspace Hosting said: “Hosting business critical applications in the cloud is something we do on a regular basis and we are delighted that Keta Keta has chosen us to support its corporate awareness drive. We understand the demands placed on websites by streaming rich media content and believe the cloud’s flexible, pay-as-you go structure makes it an ideal choice to meet these new media needs.”

Keta Keta, the viral video partner of ad:tech 2009, is an advertising agency with in-house creative, production, seeding and tracking departments. It has launched hundreds of successful viral video campaigns that have entertained and engaged people around the world for customers including LG, Fiat, MSN, L’Oreal and Orange.

About Rackspace
Rackspace’s portfolio of hosted services includes hosted exchange, managed hosting, dedicated servers, cloud hosting, virtualisation and managed exchange.

Via EPR Network
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Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Servers, eCommerce, Events, Hosting, Internet, Online, Secure Hosting, Services, Web

Rackspace Recognised By The European Business Awards 2009 For Customer Focus Excellence

Rackspace Hosting, a leading provider of IT hosting services, has announced that it has been successfully recognised as one of Europe’s leading customer service organisations by the European Business Awards 2009.

The European Business Awards recognises and rewards excellence, best practice and innovation in companies across the 27 EU member states. Now in its third year, the European Business Awards serve to showcase Europe’s most successful business achievements, with hundreds of companies entering each year. This year Rackspace Hosting achieved a top 10 place in the Award for Customer Focus category at the high profile awards ceremony, held in Rome on 7th April.

Brian Thomson, Managing Director at Rackspace, commented: “This recognition is particularly satisfying for us, as it really underlines our mantra of Fanatical Support. In the competitive IT hosting marketplace, everyone claims they deliver excellent customer service, so it’s great to prove that with Rackspace, customer focus is a reality, not just hype.

“2009 has already been a great year for recognition of our endeavours. This success follows closely on the heels of Rackspace being voted 15th best company to work for by the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies Awards, moving up nine places from 2008. This European recognition comes after Rackspace won the overall award for customer focus in the 2008 National Business Awards”.

The recognition Rackspace has achieved at these awards highlights the company’s total commitment to its customers through the Fanatical Support service which focuses on the 5 important key criteria of responsiveness, ownership, resourcefulness, expertise and transparency.

About Rackspace Hosting:
As the world’s leader and specialist in hosting, Rackspace Hosting is changing the way businesses worldwide buy IT. Rackspace delivers computing-as-a-service, integrating the industry’s best technologies into a flexible service offering, making computing more reliable and affordable.

A trusted partner to companies of all sizes, Rackspace enables IT departments to be more effective. Rackspace is distinguished by its award-winning Fanatical Support, furthering the company’s mission to be one of the world’s greatest service companies. Rackspace featured in the top 30 of both the Sunday Times 100 Best companies to work for list and the Financial Times Great Place to Work Awards, 2008.

Rackspace’s portfolio of hosted services includes managed hosting, hosted exchange and cloud hosting.

Via EPR Network
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B2b, Dedicated Servers, eCommerce, Hosting, Internet, Online, Secure Hosting, Services, Web

Rackspace survey releases businesses struggling to understand the cloud

A new survey released by Rackspace has revealed that businesses are in danger of missing out on the cloud revolution because they don’t understand the concept. The findings show that more than half of UK (57%) and US (58%) businesses are unaware of the term cloud hosting.

Organisations’ varied responses when asked to define cloud hosting highlights the current confusion. Most UK businesses (43%) defined it as ‘remote and multiple servers accessed via the internet’. In the US this was also the most popular answer (29%). UK respondents also believed cloud hosting was ‘applications via the internet’ (31%), ‘virtualisation’ (14%) and ‘online storage’ (8%), with a similar pattern being found in the US. However 27% of UK businesses ‘don’t know how they would use cloud hosting as part of their IT mix’. A third of US businesses (33%) agreed with this statement.

Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer, Rackspace Hosting, said: “Cloud technology is ideal for the current economic climate, but it is vital that businesses understand how it can best serve their organisation. At Rackspace we want to provide clearer guidelines on how they can get the most out of this technology as a matter of urgency. That is why we are launching a new cloud clinic web site.”

“Cloud is going to be the hot business topic for 2009 and it is not just IT folk that will need to understand the benefits it brings but people across the business,” added Lew.

Despite the confusion over the definition of cloud hosting, 36% of businesses in the UK and 48% in the US are ‘planning or considering using it’. Reasons for not adopting the cloud in the UK were cited as: cost (25%); ‘untested, new technology’ (14%) and reliability (15%). In the US businesses are twice (20%) as concerned about security and compliance as they are in the UK (10%).

Other key findings from the research included: 15% of UK businesses would use cloud hosting as part of their IT mix for ‘extra servers/to boost processing and distribute workload’; 11% for data back up and 8% for application hosting.

Rackspace has set up a cloud clinic to help demystify the cloud by providing a range of cloud materials and case studies.

About Rackspace Hosting
As the world’s leader and specialist in hosting, Rackspace Hosting is changing the way businesses worldwide buy IT. Rackspace delivers computing-as-a-service, integrating the industry’s best technologies into a flexible service offering, making computing more reliable and affordable.

A trusted partner to companies of all sizes, Rackspace enables IT departments to be more effective. Rackspace is distinguished by its award-winning Fanatical Support, furthering the company’s mission to be one of the world’s greatest service companies.

Rackspace featured in the top 30 of both the Sunday Times 100 Best companies to work for list and the Financial Times Great Place to Work Awards, 2008. Rackspace’s portfolio of hosted services includes managed hosting, email hosting and cloud hosting.

Via EPR Network
More Internet & Online press releases