Rackspace Managed Hosting, the leading provider of managed hosting solutions, has been awarded the 2004 Frost & Sullivan Product of the Year Award...

Rackspace Managed Hosting, the leading provider of managed hosting solutions, has been awarded the 2004 Frost & Sullivan Product of the Year Award in the telecommunications services market, for its Intensive Hosting division for Microsoft-based platforms. The award is presented each year to the company that has demonstrated excellence and shown innovation by launching a broad line of new products and technologies within its industry.

Rackspace’s Intensive Hosting was designed to meet the most critical needs of its enterprise and mid-size business customers and prospects running Microsoft deployments. The company developed its ProActive7centers service by bundling the essential technology and managed services to ensure the most secure and reliable Web operations in the industry, from security and monitoring to server administration and trending - all built on Rackspace’s managed superstructure, in response to customer needs. Frost & Sullivan cited that "by integrating a number of customer-demanded service features into a managed service that benefits all sizes of businesses, Rackspace is poised to continue as a market leader, based on the Intensive Hosting line."

According to Frost & Sullivan, as Product of the Year, Rackspace also fills a hosting services market gap for enterprise-level companies with some available IT resources, but are still unable to justify a great deal of investment to develop in-house solutions for their hosting needs. The firm noted, "Rackspace’s Intensive Hosting platform will be able to add significant value to customers that may not be able to afford large capital outlays for this service or realize that such a service is not part of their core competencies." "Rackspace continues to set the standard for providing significant value to its customers with its Intensive Hosting Division," said Rod Woodward, industry analyst, telecom services, Frost & Sullivan. "With a feature set known as the ProActive7 that includes security and patching, managed backup, server administration, trending and reporting, deep monitoring, rapid deployment and scaling, and managed superstructure, Rackspace has once again developed a service that meets and often exceeds the needs of its customers. Based on this, we are proud to award Rackspace with the 2004 Product of the Year Award."

"The launch of our fully-integrated, managed hosting service for enterprise-level Microsoft-based customers has been a significant component of our 50 percent growth in 2003," said Graham Weston, CEO and co-chairman of Rackspace Managed Hosting. "For our Intensive Hosting division to be honored by Frost & Sullivan as Product of the Year validates our vision to provide reliable and secure enterprise solutions that managed hosting customers seek." To select the Product of the Year Award recipient, Frost & Sullivan analysts tracked all new product launches, R&D spending, products in development, and new product features and modifications, and compared and evaluated those items based on the degree of innovation and customer satisfaction.

Rackspace earned the top ranking in this category by excelling in additional areas, including product acceptance, which Frost & Sullivan expects to continue to grow in this market, as well as industry significance. The firm noted, "Although Rackspace is not what one might consider as a traditional telecommunications service provider, the company is providing a service that has significant impact on the telecommunications and information technology markets."

Frost & Sullivan also honored Rackspace for its strong focus on customer satisfaction and Fanatical Supportcenters in 2002 with the Market Engineering Award for Customer Service Innovation and in 2003 with the Customer Value Enhancement Award.


About Frost & Sullivan
Founded in 1961, Frost & Sullivan is recognized as a global leader in growth consulting. Frost & Sullivan Awards are presented to companies that demonstrate excellence in their industry, commending the diligence, commitment, and innovative business strategies required to advance in the global marketplace. Frost & Sullivan rigorously analyzes specific criteria to determine award recipients in a vast variety of market industries and landscapes.

For further information, visit www.frost.com


About Rackspace Managed Hosting
Rackspace Managed Hosting is a leading provider of managed Web hosting solutions. Founded in 1998, Rackspace offers a wide range of managed services for hosting platforms of all sizes and complexities, including burstable connectivity, 100 percent availability SLA, load balancing, security and patching, advanced storage solutions and disaster recovery. Rackspace has received numerous industry awards for its brand of customer service, known as Fanatical Supportcenters, and was named in the 2003 InfoWorld 100 for technology innovation.

For more information, visit www.rackspace.com