SoftLayer is a superb dedicated hosting provider--maybe the best. They have a competent staff, several datacenters all over the US, a very good, low-latency ne

SoftLayer is a superb dedicated hosting provider--maybe the best. They have a competent staff, several datacenters all over the US, a very good, low-latency network (public and private), high-quality management tools, super high uptime and QOS, and fair pricing. So if you want to run on bare metal, but you don't want to rack servers yourself, they're a compelling option. (I'm jamie@bu.mp, and as you can see from the spreadsheet, we use softlayer)