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So I'm looking around Rackspace's webpage (a little pokey, btw) to check out the prices. I don't see any. Now, as a rational person, I have two thoughts: 1. We

So I'm looking around Rackspace's webpage (a little pokey, btw) to check out the prices. I don't see any. Now, as a rational person, I have two thoughts: 1. Well, there are a 1000 other hosting companies that aren't a pain-in-the-ass starting at step #1 (looking for prices), and 2. They are obviously ashamed of their prices anyway. ...which means that I'm going to look elsewhere. But a quick google search shows that their dedicated servers are $500/month and up. Pure insanity. But, you know, they have "Fanatical support". What is that, anyway? What I want from my hosting company is, you know, a minimum of hardware failures. I'm not sure what support you could have besides that. Backups? Backups are pure monkey work. I value it at minimum wage.

Hexstream 19y ago
I'm guessing their (retarded) rationale for not showing prices is that then you'll be "forced" to contact their sales department to know more and then you'll "have" to rent a server so that you didn't "waste" their time... Also, their configurations are "managed"... My totally uninformed guess is that you basically can't do squat without contacting them so that's why you need Fanatical Support (tm), and if you want to do something "non-standard" it will be hard and costly because it won't fit well into their architecture. I hope someone can come shed some light on how totally off the track everything I just said is. PS: The guy on their main page is fucking scary!
markbao 19y ago
Well, if they're gunning for an IPO, you know they have quality hosting. They've been around for a while, survived the 2001 bubble, and they host 37signals and a ton of other websites. I won't be a walking ad for them, but they reportedly have some kind of management structure that lets them handle support well. shrug
- ardit33 19y ago
  Maybe they are just trying to cash out. With cloud computing entering mainstream, and Amazon, Microsoft, Google and probably Sun start investing a lot of money, the space will be very competitive and capital intensive. I don't think it will be a great stock to have. The margins will only keep shrinking.
  - SwellJoe 19y ago
    It's amusing that you believe that a top five (probably #2) hosting provider that has had a competent cloud computing initiative for years (Mosso) is threatened by cloud computing entering the mainstream. I'm not saying hosting isn't going to get more competitive...I know that it is. But RackSpace has always managed to be among the fastest growing, most reliable, and highest margin, hosting providers in the industry. I think you underestimate the growth that will continue to happen in hosting for the foreseeable future, and the strength of RackSpace in that industry. Most of our customers (who are hosting providers) view RackSpace as a very serious competitor to be taken seriously on nearly every front. And I'm not saying nice things about RackSpace just because we'd like to sell them some software. They really have built an impressive business.
cstejerean 19y ago
A previous employer recently migrated their infrastructure off of Rackspace. I'm not quite sure of the price but it was in the ridiculous range and we kept having odd issues with the infrastructure (the network was setup oddly so that we got something like 10Mbps between the application servers and the DB server). We kept having really odd problems and poor performance. It seems they have plenty of satisfied customers but I would personally never do business with them.
ardit33 19y ago
As the old saying goes, if they don't show the price, and you have to ask for it, then they are too expensive for you.

Hexstream 19y ago

I'm guessing their (retarded) rationale for not showing prices is that then you'll be "forced" to contact their sales department to know more and then you'll "have" to rent a server so that you didn't "waste" their time... Also, their configurations are "managed"... My totally uninformed guess is that you basically can't do squat without contacting them so that's why you need Fanatical Support (tm), and if you want to do something "non-standard" it will be hard and costly because it won't fit well into their architecture. I hope someone can come shed some light on how totally off the track everything I just said is. PS: The guy on their main page is fucking scary!

markbao 19y ago

Well, if they're gunning for an IPO, you know they have quality hosting. They've been around for a while, survived the 2001 bubble, and they host 37signals and a ton of other websites. I won't be a walking ad for them, but they reportedly have some kind of management structure that lets them handle support well. shrug

ardit33 19y ago
Maybe they are just trying to cash out. With cloud computing entering mainstream, and Amazon, Microsoft, Google and probably Sun start investing a lot of money, the space will be very competitive and capital intensive. I don't think it will be a great stock to have. The margins will only keep shrinking.
- SwellJoe 19y ago
  It's amusing that you believe that a top five (probably #2) hosting provider that has had a competent cloud computing initiative for years (Mosso) is threatened by cloud computing entering the mainstream. I'm not saying hosting isn't going to get more competitive...I know that it is. But RackSpace has always managed to be among the fastest growing, most reliable, and highest margin, hosting providers in the industry. I think you underestimate the growth that will continue to happen in hosting for the foreseeable future, and the strength of RackSpace in that industry. Most of our customers (who are hosting providers) view RackSpace as a very serious competitor to be taken seriously on nearly every front. And I'm not saying nice things about RackSpace just because we'd like to sell them some software. They really have built an impressive business.

cstejerean 19y ago

A previous employer recently migrated their infrastructure off of Rackspace. I'm not quite sure of the price but it was in the ridiculous range and we kept having odd issues with the infrastructure (the network was setup oddly so that we got something like 10Mbps between the application servers and the DB server). We kept having really odd problems and poor performance. It seems they have plenty of satisfied customers but I would personally never do business with them.

ardit33 19y ago

As the old saying goes, if they don't show the price, and you have to ask for it, then they are too expensive for you.