Flexible Plans Drive Huge Growth at The Planet
17th November, 2004
Total Control Servers target small and medium-sized businesses that have grown beyond a standard dedicated server but can't easily afford traditional managed solutions. The program allows customers to customize a plan from a menu of hardware, software, bandwidth, backup and professional services. The program is billed on a month-by-month basis, with no money down and fees ranging from $249 to $1,999 per month.
The approach has proven popular with customers of other hosting providers, who account for the majority of The Planet's growth since the program's debut in March. An analysis of The Planet's competitive performance using our Hosting Provider Switching Analysis shows that of the 448K hostnames added in that period, more than 242K have come from rival hosting providers.
EV1Servers has taken the hardest hit, seeing a net loss of more than 51K hostnames to The Planet since March, with losses of at least 2.9K every month. In September, EV1Servers expanded its offerings, adding virtual private servers (VPS), storage solutions and some managed services.
The Planet's dominance extends to nearly all major competitors across a wide range of pricing and service models. Of the six major rivals tracked over the past nine months, only Managed.com managed to record a monthly switching gain head-to-head against The Planet, recording modest gains in March (70 hostnames), June (175) and July (600) but still winding up with a net loss of 4.6K sites.
"By bundling service items and eliminating mandatory up-front fees, we're trying to make managed hosting solutions affordable for everyone," said Steven Canale, The Planet's Total Control Sales Director.
Netcraft's Hosting Provider Switching Analysis identifies movements of sites from one hosting provider to another on a monthly basis. Please contact us for further details.