Rackspace Awarded for Top Hosting
Denver, Colorado – (Website Hosting Directory) – July 20, 2007 – Microsoft has announced its winners for the 2007 Microsoft Partner Program Awards, including the Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year, which was bestowed upon Rackspace Managed Hosting. Other competitors for the award included finalists: Independent Consulting Solutions, STRATO AG, and WebCentral Pty Ltd.
More than 1,800 entries were submitted by partners worldwide; the award winners were selected from a group of finalists based on their dedicated use of Microsoft technologies to provide solutions for their customers’ needs.
The Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year Winner, Rackspace Managed Hosting, was awarded for recognized demonstrated innovation and commitment to engaging with Microsoft. The winning partner has identified and targeted a new market opportunity using the latest version of Microsoft products and has demonstrated technical, business and marketing innovation.
Among its most notable accomplishments over the past year, was the launch of Managed Microsoft Exchange from Rackspace, a solution that provides companies access to an on-demand and highly available deployment of Microsoft Exchange Server. The offering delivers one of the most aggressive service level agreements and uptime guarantees in the industry.
This is the third Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year award Rackspace has earned during its close involvement with Microsoft over the past six years.
Allison L. Watson, Corporate Vice President of the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft remarked, ”The Partner Program Awards give Microsoft the distinct pleasure of recognizing Registered, Certified and Gold Certified partners that are going above and beyond to help our customers reach their full business potential. The winners announced today are delivering unmatched innovation and value to customers as part of Microsoft’s diverse and talented partner ecosystem. We look forward to these partners continuing to raise the bar in the design and deployment of customer solutions built on Microsoft technologies.”
Graham Weston, Executive Chairman at Rackspace Managed Hosting added, ”This is the third time that Microsoft has honored Rackspace with the Hosting Provider of the Year distinction. Managed Microsoft Exchange represents the fastest-growing part of our mail portfolio targeting 100,000 users and Rackspace is committed to providing a superior managed hosting solution on the Microsoft platform as seen with our Managed Exchange offering. Our close collaboration with Microsoft allows us to successfully offer Exchange Server on our highly-available network infrastructure and backed by the company’s award-winning Fanatical Support.”
John Zanni, Director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft Corp. offered, ”Rackspace has been a long-time hosting partner that has demonstrated its talent and expertise year after year, raising the bar in the design and deployment of customer solutions built on Microsoft technologies. Consuming applications as a service, such as Hosted Microsoft Exchange, is becoming increasingly popular among small and medium-sized businesses, so it’s no surprise that Managed Microsoft Exchange from Rackspace is the fastest-growing product in their suite of email solutions. Rackspace has been successful with Managed Microsoft Exchange from Rackspace by pairing an important service with Fanatical Support to provide companies with a superior service delivery model.”
The Partner Program Awards recognize Microsoft Registered, Certified and Gold Certified partners that developed exemplary solutions for their customers during the past year. More than 1,800 entries were submitted by partners worldwide, and finalists were selected based on their dedicated use of Microsoft technologies to provide customer solutions. The winners will be honored at an awards ceremony at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007, the company’s premier annual partner event taking place July 10 – 12 in Denver.
The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference provides Microsoft’s partner community with access to key marketing and business strategies, leadership, and information regarding specific customer solutions designed to help partners succeed in the marketplace. Along with informative learning opportunities covering sales, marketing, services and technology, the Worldwide Partner Conference is an ideal setting for partners to garner valuable knowledge from their peers and from Microsoft.
A recognized leader in the global managed hosting market, Rackspace Managed Hosting delivers enterprise-level managed services to businesses of all sizes. Serving more than 13,000 customers in eight data centers worldwide, Rackspace integrates the industry’s technologies for each customer need and delivers it as a service via the company’s Fanatical Support. Through trusted relationships, Rackspace serves as an extension of its customers, IT departments, to enable them to focus on core business. Since its inception in 1998, Rackspace has grown more than 50 percent a year.
For more information, please visit www.rackspace.com.
To learn more about the awards, please visit: www.microsoft.com/partner/events/wwpartnerconference.
For more information about Microsoft, please visit: www.microsoft.com.
