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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- As much of the world comes to terms with an economic crisis, many companies are tightening their IT budgets in an effort to save a dollar here or there.
Smaller businesses, in particular, are finding it increasingly difficult to have an efficient security infrastructure in place without making a significant upfront investment.
This, of course, is a concern for security service providers. In one particular case, managed vulnerability assessment services provider Edgeos (www.edgeos.com) has introduced a new month-to-month pricing model which enables smaller providers to offer vulnerability assessment services without having to immediately commit to a monthly minimum.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Perimeter eSecurity, Edgeos provides a private labeled service that enables partners to perform unlimited internal and external vulnerability scans on different web hosts through a web-enabled portal.
Edgeos says it helps these companies to build new sources of recurring revenues, drive brand value, simplify management and lower costs.
Prior to introducing this new month-to-month pricing option, Edgeos services were sold on a subscription basis, and required customers to sign a one-year minimum contract with a minimum usage of $1,000 in services a month, a per unit cost of $5, and additional overage charges.
The company found that, while this kind of subscription-based pricing worked well for larger organizations, many smaller companies were finding it difficult to come up with the upfront costs to offer these services, says Jay Jacobson, CEO of Edgeos.
"Some companies tended to struggled with the [subscription-based model], and that's companies who are not in the security business today but they're looking to launch a new line of business doing security services, or even startup companies where security may be their whole business but they're just trying to get off the ground," says Jacobson. "Essentially anybody who doesn't necessarily have the existing customer base already under their belt, or the existing revenue to support a long term contract."
The new month-to-month agreement does come with a condition: Edgeos customers will have to pay $25 instead of the regular $5 per unit cost associated with a contract.
However, going month to month ensures that customers will not be billed based on a minimum length of time or usage for services. Customers can always choose to upgrade from the month-to-month agreement to a standard contract at any time once their business gets off the ground without incurring a penalty fee.
"This is something that we've always wanted to do but have never been able to do," says Jacobson. "It's really the technology we have developed over the last six months has allowed us to make this shift."
The Edgeos security services platform is an integrated web-based portal that gives visitors complete access to its services, including scanning engines that perform fully automated assessments, a custom reporting engine that offers in-depth security analysis data, and a security management interface.
Customers are also assured that Edgeos services meet or exceed all vulnerability scanning requirements for important regulations and industry standards including PCI, SOX, HIPAA, GLBA and FISMA.
And since Edgeos is entirely private label focused, all of its products and services are branded in its customers' name.
"Edgeos is the only company that focuses purely on the private labelling," says Jay Jacobson, CEO of Edgeos. "Our entire business is about helping our customers create their own suite of security services for their end users. That is our real focus, that's where we invest all our energy, that's where we stand out in the crowd."
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July 2010 - What's Next? Forecasting Hosting's Future
Technically, there's nothing new about us posing the question, "what are the next steps hosting providers must take to capitalize on the opportunities available in the business?" From the 10,000-foot view, that's the basic premise that underlies just about everything the WHIR publishes or produces. In this particular case, however, we're looking at it through an extremely significant contextual lens. That is, for much of the last two years, hosting providers have been operating in a business climate defined by an economy in crisis.
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Europe cuts an interesting figure in our coverage of the web hosting industry. From a purely news standpoint, it is very possible to treat Europe in more or less the same way that we treat North America - that is, report the facts, ask the right questions, try to anticipate the issues raised. From an analytical standpoint, however, we present a distinctly North American point of view - this being the product of circumstances (our location), rather than a bias.
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In 2008, in our inaugural Hottest Hosts guide, I wrote that we were exploring a new format with the first in-print directory of web hosting services. And last year, I discussed the project in the context of an ongoing project, and a growing tradition here at the Web Host Industry Review. The objective, however, is not to repeat ourselves, but to help the directory evolve into a more valuable resource - something that's going to help you with your purchasing decisions, and something you're going to hold on to for the duration of the year.
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