The October issue of Web Host Industry Review magazine ought to start landing in your mailboxes this week. It’s a lovely bright yellow, and, among other things, it contains a transcript of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with Douglas Erwin, CEO of The Planet and EV1 Servers.
The interview was timed, not coincidentally, to take place almost exactly three months after the last time we spoke – shortly after the two companies merged, and Erwin assumed the CEO post – at which point he described his plans to spend the next 90 days first putting a new management team in charge of the merged company, and second laying out a framework for how the merged company intended to operate.
As is sometimes the case, the interview was long. And the transcript, as it appears in print, is a selection of some of the key moments from that interview. In cases like these, we tend to run the whole interview on the Web, where we’re free from the constraints of word counts. You can read the longer transcript here.
It’s a long transcript. Erwin spoke quickly and had a lot to say. Obviously he had fulfilled his intention of developing a plan. For me, the conversation cleared up quite a few questions I had about how the company intends to employ what is probably the most impressive set of resources in the dedicated hosting business.
The company sounds like it’s well on track. For my money, here’s your Web hosting company to watch for the next few months.
A few specific points:
- The new management team is in place. Erwin describes the team in pretty thorough detail during the interview.
- The company is moving away from prefab hosting packages to an unbundled build-it-yourself sort of offering.
- It is expanding its lines of business to include a lower-cost dedicated server line, a more standard dedicated server offering and a high-end managed hosting offering that appears designed to compete with companies like Rackspace.
- The company will introduce a new brand, along with a new name and a new Web site, in January of 2007.
Forgive me for getting caught up on the little details, but I get excited about the big decisions involved in branding. Especially when the companies I’ve become very familiar with suddenly become something else altogether (as in the case of Interland). The company is definitely planning a new name, according to Erwin. And I find myself more than a little bit interested in the outcome of this particular project.
I suppose I’d be most amused by some kind of confusing cris-cross of the names “Everyone’s Internet,” and “The Planet;” something like “Everyone’s Planet,” or even better, “The Internet.”
I know it’s a long shot, but my vote is in. Please, mister Erwin. Call your Web hosting company “The Internet.”
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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