Karl Pichler, Rackspace's finance director of EMEA, spoke to the WHIR about the company's new European offices.
WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting and cloud computing provider Rackspace Hosting (www.rackspace.com) recently announced it has leased about 101,000 square feet of office space in Middlesex, England.
The company will move later this year from its current offices in Stockley Park to the new office space, which will effectively serve as its headquarters in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
With its managed hosting and cloud business growing rapidly throughout the United States, Rackspace has been focused on duplicating this success in the international markets.
Located close to Heathrow Airport and the company’s green data center in Slough, the new office will be a significant upgrade over its current space.
In a recent phone interview with the WHIR, Karl Pichler, finance director of EMEA at Rackspace Hosting discussed the details behind the new EMEA headquarters and how it will open new opportunities as the company expands its presence in the EMEA market.
WHIR: What is the current makeup of Rackspace’s EMEA operations?
Karl Pichler: Our EMEA operations addressed Europe, Middle-East and Africa out of London. We basically don’t need operational footprint where our customers are because they just consume cloud computing or dedicated infrastructure from concentrated facilities. Our data center facility is in a town called Slough, which is about 25 minutes outside of London. Customers from Continental Europe, the UK, Africa – all their hardware is located in the data center in Slough, and all the work we do for them from a people perspective is in our offices in London.
WHIR: How much business does the EMEA market bring in compared to the rest of the Rackspace organization?
KP: The EMEA region is roughly about 25 percent of the global company. It depends a bit on what the exchange rate is. In the beginning it was like “let’s open an [EMEA] office so we have one,” and then it lingered around a little bit. Then it really started to take off in the early 2000′s, probably 2002 or 2003. It was always growing very fast, always faster than the US, albeit on a smaller base. We’re now about 550-560 people.
WHIR: What were the motivating factors for Rackspace in moving to a new office?
KP: Our [current] office base is in Stockley Park. We have different floors in two different buildings that are about a half a mile apart from each other. That’s where we’ve been for most of the time. So we were looking for something where we could basically consolidate into one building so that everyone is together, so we don’t have to commute between the two buildings because we have quite a collaborative [dynamic].
WHIR: Can you discuss the specifics of how the technical training program will be structured in the new EMEA office?
KP: The technical training has two parts: the vendor-based training – our people are either Red Hat-certified engineers or Microsoft solution engineers or Cisco networking specialists or EMC specialists. This is training that is provided through the vendors, either on the site or off site. But that is obviously the technical expertise [that is] at the core of our services. The other element is that since we are people-intensive, the very important piece of our training is managerial and development, and really having a continuous means to develop the existing and upcoming managerial bench and further developing them to take care of the people. That’s as important as the first one. Besides the technical training provided by the equipment manufacturers or software developers, there is a Rackspace element to the technical training as well, so that would be housed on site. There’s really a lot of different training on the technical side and on the managerial side that is going to be facilitated there.
When will the move to the new office space actually take place?
KP: We’ll be moving in November or December of this year.
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