Providers can make money with e-mail and integrated upsell – The WHIR Q+A with Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange

I met up with Rafael soon after he had participated in the Parallels Summit in Singapore. He shared his thoughts on how service providers can make money with e-mail. Open-Xchange is a provider of business-class open source collaboration software.

Hi Rafael, thanks for doing this interview. Lets start with question one: What were your observations from the Parallels Summit event in Singapore?

The Parallels regional partners event in Singapore was wonderful – good attendance, high quality participants, along with some fun. I noticed there that many service providers think of e-mail as a necessary evil as part of their overall Mobile, DSL, Webhosting and Domain offerings. Their complaints are that e-mail and Collaboration solutions — or anything more than basic e-mail — is hard to manage, expensive to run and requires specialized skills that are expensive. Not to mention that they’re facing competitors like Google and Microsoft, degrading Service Providers to mere resellers.

So, from your perspective at Open-Xchange, what needs to change?

In my mind, Integration and Upsell are the magic words. Open-Xchange offers a slick Webmailer that can be seamlessly upgraded to full business features like sharing, mobile support, Microsoft Outlook and Mac OSX integration. Our e-mail and collaboration software does not require alien infrastructure and requires no migration away from the existing mail store / IMAP / POP3 back-ends and runs with the edge services for anti-spam and anti-virus that are already there. And, importantly for service providers, it is manageable from the existing control panels and the commercial tools like Parallels Plesk Panel and Parallels Automation.

Are there any examples today that could serve as a model?

Check out what for example 1&1 does. The Webmailer is based on Open-Xchange. It exposes all features, also the ones not available in the free version. If a user clicks on such a feature, an in-application sales process starts that explains the user the benefits of upgrading to the paid, business-class “MailXchange” branded Open-Xchange based offering. Right there the user can buy the upgrade and work with the fully-featured version immediately.

So, let’s be specific. What about benefits for service providers in all this?

Rewards are immediate, the in-application point of sale is a very efficient tool to convert unpaid services to a nice, ever increasing, additional, recurring income for the service provider. We’ll be talking more about this at our second annual Open-Xchange Partner Summit in Cologne, Germany which is coming up on November 4. We invite service providers to come join us and hope to see you there, Soeren. Maybe we can do this again afterwards to tell everyone about it.

That all sounds good to me, Rafael. Thank you very much.

You can find more about Open-Xchange at www.open-xchange.com.

Montagu Private Equity backs management buyout of Host Europe. Interview with Thomas Vollrath – CEO of Host Europe Group

As announced today Montagu Private Equity has reached an agreement to acquire Host Europe Group in partnership with its management team from Oakley Capital for a consideration of £222 million. You can find the Press release here: http://www.montaguequity.com/news/?id=2908

I had the chance to talk briefly  to Thomas Vollrath, the Group-CEO today.

Thomas, congratulations on the deal. What was the decision to make the management buy-out of Host Europe Group with Montagu?

Thomas Vollrath: We have been looking for an investor with an overall longer term investment view and longer pay back periods, plus access to a network of experts that support our growth strategies.

The press release states that you “plan to integrate the two businesses” (webfusion and Host Europe) and “create a platform to address the new upcoming opportunities”.

Thomas Vollrath: As a group we have a strong and broad product portfolio, providing to our customers everything from domains, shared hosting, VAS, SAAS, VPS to managed and customised hosting solutions for larger customers. All of the above supported by a passion for customer service and customer engagement.

With what solutions and products do you see the highest growth potential over the next 2 years in our industry?

Thomas Vollrath: As a group our growth will primarily come from managed hosting, virtualisation and value added services, whilst improving service levels for our existing customer base.

How is the management team structured after the management buy-out? Who will be in charge of what?

Thomas Vollrath: Local management teams remain as they are, the overall strategy and group synergies will be managed by the board.

What’s new in the daily business at webfusion and Host Europe?

Thomas Vollrath: Our recent webfusion launch in Spain (see www.webfusion.es) is doing quite nicely. Also, we will re-launch the webusion.co.uk site by end of month and Host Europe launched new VPS and dedicated server specs at the beginning of this month.

Thanks Thomas

The merger of Strato and Deutsche Telekom – what´s next?

Today I had the opportunity to talk witch Damian Schmidt, CEO of STRATO, the second biggest ISP in Europe, about the acquisition of STRATO by the Deutsche Telekom. Let´s find out what impact this merger is going to have on the German and European hosting market.

Damian, the acquisition of STRATO by Deutsche Telekom was a merger of two of Germany’s hosting and communication giants. How do you think this will influence the hosting business in Germany?

Damian Schmidt: Here at STRATO, we offer our customers a complete range of products. They can choose any product from our palette, including online photo albums, shared web hosting, web shops, virtual and dedicated servers and even on-demand infrastructure, and are free to use it privately or for business purposes. We also offer an excellent, awarded-winning service that helps our customers convert their ideas into reality. Our size allows us to introduce new concepts onto the market before others. All these factors have contributed to our current leading position in the hosting market. Deutsche Telekom will enable us to take even better advantage of our potential.

And in Europe?

Damian Schmidt: Other than further differentiating our product range on the German market, we think there is still a lot of potential in other European markets. There, too, we are betting on “mass hosting”, in the best sense of the word: a high level of automation, low prices and a focus on practical value. We do not only focus on our core market Germany, on the Netherlands and Spain: In the course of the year, we will also strengthen our position and introduce new products onto the British market. We are, however, also present in other European countries.

What do you expect to be the main advantages and synergies resulting from the merger?

Damian Schmidt: Besides the usual benefits like joint buying power, Deutsche Telekom’s sales channels and proximity to the customer harness great potential for STRATO. Additionally, Deutsche Telekom can give us a significant push on international markets with both, budget and market access via existing subsidiaries in several countries. 

Can you tell us how STRATO and Deutsche Telekom are going to restructure their business after the acquisition?

Damian Schmidt: STRATO will continue to exist as a brand and a firm to continue its activities in the market. Deutsche Telekom wants to use our growth strength and innovation to occupy more strategic positions. We are a sustainable reinforcement to Deutsche Telekom’s position in our market segment.

What is next for STRATO ( in products/services)?

Damian Schmidt: Today, people are actively creating online content on a regular basis. A true democratisation of the internet is taking place. The next big step will be that we no longer speak about publishing material online, but also about not publishing content that is technically online. On the face of it, this may contradict the classical notion of web hosting, but as we produce more digital documents, texts, photos and videos, the need to store them both safely and centrally “in the cloud” is growing. The term safe here is twofold: safe from unauthorised access on one hand, and safe from loss or damage on the other. In addition, there is a growing desire to access personal data from a client’s or a friend’s home, or on the road. STRATO meets this demand with a storage product, which eliminates the need for local storage and at the same time meets both definitions of safety. In this respect, I will no longer speak about web hosting, but quite simply about hosting: in the sense of centrally and safely storing data, of which you decide what gets published and what does not. This development will lastingly change the hosting industry as we know it.

Mastering the SMB via the Cloud

Today I have the pleasure in meeting Rob Lovell, CEO of ThinkGrid to discuss how they are leading the charge to draw SMBs into the cloud.

Rob, tell us a little about ThinkGrid

Rob Lovell: ThinkGrid is a business we setup around 18 months ago to focus on aiding VARs, MSPs, ISVs and even hosters in grabbing land in the new cloud economy. In essence we have a large public large cloud spread out across the world, which our partners can plug into and spin up services (specifically aimed at SMB), bill for them, manage then all from one pane of glass – helps those still new or starting the cloud get traction with no real investment.

So, why focus on SMB as the end customer?

Rob Lovell: Good question, well the landscape is such that large providers play at both fringes of the market leaving a gap – so let’s take one end – the Consumer – this can be serviced by broad players like Telco’s, ISPs and even vendors like Microsoft with their BPOS offering. The consumer market requires simple, productised, turnkey solutions that solve a specific issue and this is easy for big players to handle, which makes it highly competitive and low margin. At the other side of the spectrum is the Large and Enterprise business, now they have a number of options to manage their IT, one is they sink capital and resource into it, by maintaining their own environment customised specifically to them, the other is that they utilise very large Systems Integrator who will outsource this for them but will build a single tenant solution and both are every expensive. This means that there is a gap in the middle where the big Telco’s and Vendors and also the big systems integrators can not touch. The modern day SMB needs a number of different services, aggregated tougher, provided simply and also require someone to manage it for them.

Why are SMBs underserviced?

Rob Lovell: Typically for the very point above – “they need someone to aggregate and manage it for them”. So the big Telco’s and Vendors only take a small portion of the IT spend, the rest actually goes through resellers. Local people and IT firms who provide the management, the aggregation and specialist knowledge to help SMBs utilise this technology properly.

So how do you go about attracting SMBs?

Rob Lovell: The important point is really looking at the SMB in terms of how they use IT and what they use it for. Boiling it down to a technology is not healthy, so we need to keep it very much service orientated. SMB’s know what they want – i.e. to be able to work for anywhere and collaborate with colleagues etc so marrying services and solutions together is much more effective than selling Gigabytes and CPU cycles. Look at Intuit or even BPOS, they are marketing it very much as a solution offering – which is different really from the way hosting is sold right now.

If we are looking at serving SMB customers then we need to conquer that piece in the middle which is the aggregation and management/support and to do that we need a different type of sales model i.e. Channel.

What services are being bought by SMBs?

Rob Lovell: There is a myth that SMBs are running to the cloud and moving their entire office and IT environment. Just as with all IT there is a phased approach that businesses are taking. They are starting with simple services to gain trust in the cloud such as Hosted Exchange, Ecommerce, Backup, File Serving and of course their App Servers, and then moving to start replacing what they consider core internal IT, such as Desktops, Applications, Voice and more…

As services get more complex and require integration or migration these services will not transact online, so ensure there is a sales strategy outside online marketing.

Are hosters under threat from Microsoft, Google, and Intuit etc?

Rob Lovell: Yes and no. Yes that these giants will start nibbling away at the consumer and SoHo spaces, but because of the number of variables involved in providing IT for SMB’s these guys cannot be all things to everyone… they have to stay broad. The way for the hoster to become successful is to focus on a niche, which could be a complex service, it could be a vertical market. Value added services and different sales techniques will maintain a healthy growth.

How can hosters move into this space?

Rob Lovell: Absolutely, but the cloud offers a very strategic change. Of course you can just add some cloud services like Virtual Server to your portfolio, but again this is something that any of the big guys can do. So how do you change your products to be services, build a sales team to sell solutions not plans and how you support and make sticky that existing customer base? Services and offerings are not sticky if there is only one; you want to sell a number of services to lock in your customers for when the big guys get closer.

Process- and Releasemanagement at 1&1

Today I have the chance to do an interview with Martin Blaha, Head of Process- and Releasemanagement at 1&1. Let’s find out how 1&1 managage their product launches.

Martin -  your title is Head of Process- and Releasemanagement. What does that mean, and what are the objectives in that role?

Martin Blaha: Well, the job might have a different title at other companies, but I suppose other organizations must have someone who is responsible for efficiency and day-to-day business operations.

Release Management, on the other hand, used these structures to manage the product planning and product roll-out processes more efficiently.  While Process Management is about creating and changing organizational structures, Release Management is the operational platoon in our project business.

Can you share some metrics and numbers with us ?

Martin Blaha: Currently we manage 7 product groups and their launch strategies. Every product group plans at least one major release per quarter, while product groups in focus might plan two.  Additionally, we manage a high number of small and medium releases (in ITIL vocabulary “changes”) in every product group as well as realize their bi-monthly special print marketing campaigns. We organize our release and development activities in projects. I can’t provide an exact number, however using the structure I just mentioned, you can get a sense of how much my department handles at any one time throughout the year.

How do you decide on the launch of new services at 1&1?

Martin Blaha: The decisions in the past were handled mainly by the people who built up the business.  With the natural transition of growing into a larger business, 1&1 had to develop an organization that broadened management and instituted a process-driven planning and development workflow.  By putting concepts into roadmaps, our workflow progressed to be even more efficient as roles were more clearly defined.  The process of effectively developing ideas from a concept to an engineered product or service is fully streamlined and laid out in such a manner that promotes increasingly positive results.

The milestones in this process ensure that we consciously make decisions from a portfolio perspective, challenging the idea and its strategy alignment before entering the next phase of the process.

Isn’t such a process oversized? What are the advantages of the workflows which you setup?

Martin Blaha: A process is an organizational agreement on how to reach a certain goal in a predefined way, and in such a large organization, there are several people who give their input into day-to-day operations.  For example, coordinating upwards of 100 teams at once is sometimes required for one project release. The process doesn’t slow us down however; from an overall perspective it is actually more efficient. Our product planning and development process allows us to better plan, allocate our resources and handle potential conflicts.  In fact, it helps us look towards the future and makes communication transparent because we talk about the company’s priorities.

Such workflows, processes might be oversized for many of our readers, but can you give us some learning curves on how hosters can optimize their workflows in regard of their release planning?

Martin Blaha: Processes are built to organize business strategy, in other words to streamline the business and IT workflow.  This is not about company size. A process is a management tool that helps to operate the business in a transparent way.  So, while 1&1 uses several processes to run the business, we stick to what works best for us – as every company should.  Every business will have processes to follow, be it for customer communications, support incidents or what have you. Sometimes the key may lie in taking a closer look at reoccurring tasks or long-term projects to analyze costs and then streamline processes. So really, the best way to optimize workflow is to analyze your business and create a process that fits your organization’s unique requirements.

Thanks a lot for the interview, Martin.

Q&A on the acquisition of vanager by Host Europe

I had the opportunity to talk with Daniel Hagemeier, Managing Director of vanager and Patrick Pulvermueller, Managing Director of Host Europe on the recently announced deal.

Congratulations on the deal. Daniel – first question to you: what was your motivation to sell?

Daniel Hagemeier: vanager developed really great over the last years. We were constantly growing and passed our most successful business year in 2009. The engines of this growth are our innovative products und contented customers. As an example, we just recently released a completely revised version of our server-management-software, which clearly distinguishes in function from existing standard-panels. Customers love such innovations. In order to continue growing and keep on serving our customers with such beneficial products, we were looking for a partner who already has the needed experience und infrastructure. This way we can keep on concentrating on our core skills in the virtualization area.

Daniel – Why did you prefer Host Europe and how did you end up negotiating with them?

Daniel Hagemeier: We realized from the very beginning, that our future partner needed to be compatible with our high quality standards, customers and also with our passion for enterprise. That’s why we thought about possible partners very carefully and ended up talking to Host Europe reasonably targeted. The company is the third biggest hosting-provider in Germany and experienced a huge growth over the last years themselves. Right after the first conversation with Patrick we were sure, that Host Europe and vanager just fit together perfectly. As a result, further discussions were very productive and we reached an agreement quite fast – and that just still feels right today.

Patrick – Host Europe is now the biggest VPS Hoster in Europe with 35k VPSs. How do you plan to integrate the platform and customers of vanager into Host Europe?

Patrick Pulvermueller: The physical servers will be moved from the vanager data center to our high energy efficient data center in Cologne on April 25th. On the one hand this simplifies monitoring and administration and on teh other hand reduces cost for power supply and cooling right from the beginning. To ensure smooth integration, we decided to keep the vanager hosting platform as it is. vanager`s staff even will continue to support vanager customers to whom there will be nearly no change at all.

Patrick – vanager did a great job with their VPS reseller panel. Do you plan to go on offering those products and/or extend and ongoing develop this product range?

Patrick Pulvermueller: vanager really did a great job with their reseller panel – it was one of the main assets that made the deal very attractive to us. We definitely will continue this product range and plan to further extend it, also I won`t go into further detail at this point. Virtualization is a key element of our strategy and I think the vanager deal perfectly proves that we are very serious about that. And for sure we`ll continue to strengthen our position within the virtualization market. So stay tuned for further news!

Daniel – What is next for you and your partner?

Daniel Hagemeier: For now, we are busy with the take-over and the necessary acts of integration. Therefore, our team will move to Cologne. My managing partner Marcel Chorengel and I will be on-site as well, in order to upgrade vanager together with the team of Host Europe. We ourselves can learn a lot there and are looking forward to this experience. To be sure the hosting industry will remain our home. Marcel and I already have some exciting new ideas for more innovative products. However, I can not reveal any details at the moment.

Thanks a lot, Daniel and Patrick. We wish you all the best in the next couple of weeks on the integration of vanager into Host Europe.

The evolving role of professional recruitment in the European service provider industry

It´s time for my third blog on the European view of the hosting business. This time, I am interviewing Sascha Frank, Executive Director of espiridon in Germany.

Hello Sascha, thank you for participating in this interview. Who are you and what is your business?

Sascha Frank: Thank you, Soeren, for having me in. I’m the founder and Executive Director of espiridon. We are an executive search boutique, recruiting execs and non-execs in the software, service provider, ISV and telecommunications industries. We’ve been in the service provider industry for 5 years. “We help you grow” – this is our slogan and for us it’s not about dealing with CV’s, it’s about understanding a partner’s (we call our clients partners) philosophy, strategy, culture and about defining an exact profile regarding the required skill set. The smaller a company is the more it is not only about professional experience, it’s more about personal fit. As a trusted advisor, we will accompany and advise our partner as long as it takes until the appropriate candidate is found and integrated into the company. More information under www.espiridon.com or write me an email under sascha.frank@espiridon.com.

Sascha, your company exhibited the second time during Webhostingday in Cologne last week and you have been in the industry with your company espiridon for more than 5 years right now. What kind of an impression do you have on the industry from a recruiter’s perspective?

Sascha Frank: it comes clearly to my mind that hosting providers are more and more aware of investing in new markets, news channels, new products and in professional partner management (ISV’s). They need new business and therefore additional skills are required – they invest time and money in business development and sales.

Interesting point. I do agree that there is an urgent need for skills like that in hosting providers but also for ISV’s which need employees who understand the business model of their customers – the hosting providers. ISV’s need people to help the customers understand how it can create additional revenue with the ISV’s software solution and how to stand out from the mainstream. So, tell me how is business development integrated in large and in small- and medium-sized hosting providers.

Sascha Frank: in large service providers business development is normally not directly sales related. It’ is integrated in product management and in charge of creating visions regarding new markets, products, channels and partners. This is good though because sales normally does not have the time to develop new things. And to be honest, they are not paid for it. They are paid for achieving the quota, bringing revenue in by selling products and services to clients. They do what they are best in – they simply ship, ship, ship.

In small- and medium-sized service providers there is in fact no additional business development or product management department. It’s the board’s job or the founder’s job and that’s more or less the chance on one hand and the challenge on the other.

What do you mean exactly?

Sascha Frank: founders and board members normally work 24/7. So, where is the additional time to invest in business development? Simply in defocusing and take on new paths in prioritizing tasks. It’s not impossible but challenging.

Hosting providers fish in the same pond. What’s their strategy?

Sascha Frank: Small- and medium-sized hosting providers normally practice the “principle of peaceful coexistence”. Meaning that whole teams do not change fronts in general. This more likely to find in large service providers where it can really hurt when one company loses whole team to another one.

Why is it sometimes so difficult to attract business development and sales people for small- and medium-sized hoster?

Sascha Frank: you know, first of all, founders and managers of a hosting provider have to admit that business development and sales people are different, very different. Sometimes they are the total opposite of the founders which made the company successful. And while being successful in the past there was no pressure to hire them. But now there is pressure. This is what our partners tell when we talk to them about filling new positions. The only thing is that the final decisions regarding hiring new people in this area haven’t been made yet. But we interviewed a couple of insiders from the industry before Webhostingday and this was the feedback they provided.

You said hosting providers have to invest in business development and sales. Assuming the hosting providers will be successful in recruiting these kinds of people – how can they keep them on board?

Sascha Frank:by drawing a clear picture where your company is heading to, giving them a chance to develop, providing visions, spirit and culture. And by just being a “good employer”.

Sascha, thank you for the interview.

Please find more about espiridon at www.espiridon.com.

Interview with Jose Cerdan, CEO of acens in Spain

It´s time for my second blog on the European view of the hosting business.

Today I am talking with Jose Cerdan, CEO at acens. acens is the market leader in Spain for managed hosting services. In the last few years they acquired a couple of smaller Service Provider in the Spanish market. How did they managed to successfully integrate the acquired companies and their products into their own product range?

Let´s find out!

Jose, can you please tell us a little bit more about acens and how long you have been working there?

Jose Cerdan: acens is the leader in professional hosting services in Spain. The company has being offering hosting services under acens brand since 2001. acens had always been attractive to VCs and investment firms due its growth rate and I´ve been on the company´s board for years. It was in 2007 when Nazca, a successful Spanish investment firm, decided to back acens´ next growing phase and I became the CEO and shareholder.

In the last few years acens acquired some service provider companies. What is your strategy to consolidate all the various brands?

Jose Cerdan: In 2008, we acquired Hostalia. 2009 was a year when we closed two more hosting-provider acquisitions, Ferca and Veloxia, and worked on consolidating their operations. We are currently working on a strategy to group brands under two different targeting scenarios.

Lets talk about organic growth vs. gaining market share through acquisitions. Tell us your personal opinion on pro’s and con’s of the acens model.

Jose Cerdan: We´ve all seen consolidation in the hosting business worldwide. It´s without a doubt a matter of scale and in 2007 we were very well positioned as a premium services company. We have kept that position now and are growing high organically but we also believed we needed to expand our targeting. Buying is a faster way to get not only new business but brands to build our two-fold strategy: basic + premium. Most hosting markets have been very fragmented, and small companies are struggling to gain scale benefits. Growing by acquisitions always forced the organization to work on integrations and that may set you aside of the organic growth but it´s still a profitable way of getting more business for our business model.

What, in your view, are the relevant factors for a successful acquisition and integration?

Jose Cerdan: Acquisitions are time-consuming and may affect your day-to-day operations. We´ve built a specific team for this and it´s been my main priority so far.

You´ll need a platform created to grow by acquisitions, otherwise you will not benefit from consolidation. We´ve built an operating platform to market different brands, companies and levels of service. Room to grow facilities is very important because we tend to allocate servers and infrastructure in at least two different places. Our very skilled technical team has been important in understanding each company specifics. So I would say a dedicated team, a strong tech team and an adaptable platform are critical to go.

Tell us, what’s next at acens? Do you already have more targets (maybe new markets) in mind or are you busy finishing the latest integrations during 2010?

Jose Cerdan: Integration is still going on. We are always looking for new acquisition opportunities within the Spanish market. At the present time we are keeping 3 purchase transactions open.

Jose, thanks a lot for the interview!

Please find more about acens at www.acens.com

The European view on our Industry – let’s get started

Do you want to know what the Europeans think about the international hosting business? Then follow me on my new blog on theWHIR.com. I am Soeren von Varchmin, VP Sales at ePages. I´ve been working in the hosting business for over 10 years now and many people still know me from my time at Parallels, where I held the position of VP Saas & Service Provider International.

On my new blog at theWHIR.com I will interview and introduce you to the relevant people working in the hosting industry in Europe and how they think the business will evolve in the future.

In todays first interview I am talking with Fermín Palacios, Business Unit Manager at Arsys. Arsys is the market leader in Spain for traditional hosting services.

1.Please tell us a little more about Arsys, your job at Arsys and in which countries you operate

Arsys – one of the leading European companies of its kind leads the Spanish market in domain registration, web hosting, and hosted applications. Today Arsys manages over 680,000 registered domains and more than 235,000 clients in 100+ countries.  Our e-business formula allows us to offer our Internet services worldwide.  The Carlyle Group and Mercapital own Arsys since December 2007.

arsys.es was founded back in 1996 and it was the origin of everything.  We´ve gone worldwide since 2002 beginning with arsys.fr in France and arsys.pt in Portugal in 2004.

In my capacity asf Business Unit Manager, I implement the corporate strategy and evaluate possible scenarios associated to new businesses and competitors.

2 What´s the role of R&D in Arsys ?

Technological innovation is one of the most important areas of our company which in turn has given us independence as a company and a great capacity of response and freedom of movements when it comes to facing competitors and changing environments.  Arsys employs some 270 employees and nearly 15% of this staff works on various R&D projects – customer service, quality assurance, security, development of new applications, services, and products, ongoing updating, and easy-to-use environments for all our customers.

3. Let us know 3 existing product lines at Arsys, where you see great growth during 2010 and why

There is this new model using technological solutions as a service, without the use of any hardware tools supporting the system.  So customers only pay for the resources they use.  All cloud hosting-based technological solutions – whether it is cloud computing, cloud hosting services or cloud storage solutions will be responsible for the sector´s prospective economic growth for their availability, efficiency, flexibility, and scalability.

Back on April 2009 we launched Spain´s first commercial cloud hosting platform, running on VMWare vSphere Virtualization Technology, SAN Architecture and State-of-the-Art Servers.  Early this month we expanded our cloud service portfolio and we are already working on new functionalities that will hit the market in Q2 of 2010.

The cloud philosophy comprises several applications like e-commerce solutions – one of our strongest, business units.  Unlike former conventional wisdom that e-commerce solutions should only address big enterprise because of its technical difficulties, mass-market e-commerce solutions provide an integral, easy to use- solution to drive online sales at SMB’s.

Also SMBs and freelancers pump up the market of shared hosting and domain registration.  They are the basic essential online services sustaining economic growth since they are the pathway to the Internet.

4. What in your opinion are the trends for 2010 (especially in your market)?

Trends we´ll see in 2010 will be influenced by the actual economic situation.  So we see a trend seeking to make the most out of business resources.  This idea will become a reality through the various technological concepts we already know such as cloud computing, cloud hosting software as a service, green technologies, sustainable data centers, mobility, and infrastructures as a service.  The main idea underlying these concepts is maximum efficiency stepping aside from traditional ICT-based business models.

5. Which international (European or US) Mass-Market Service Providers do you watch/observe?

The Service Provider market is global.  There are no local or national competitors but worldwide competitors.  So it´s a demanding market for a very demanding customer in a very competitive environment, where innovation and new product development is one of the key elements when customers buying services from a given provider.  Trends in Europe and in the U.S. are important to look into; both at small providers and suppliers to the service provider industry, as well as mass-market service providers.

More information on arsys.es can be found on www.arsys.es and Twitter (@arsys_es)