WorldCom (Nasdaq: WCOM) Wednesday (March 14) unveiled a comprehensive set of managed Web hosting solutions that allow virtually any business to implement or enhance its e-business strategy in as few as 10 to 15 days.
Available immediately, WorldCom is offering 18 different hosting packages designed to meet every company’s need for high-performance global Web hosting solutions by bringing together all the essentials of hosted e-business solutions – hosting, security, reporting, administration, monitoring and back-up – and advanced services through its complete suite of easily-deployed offerings.
By combining the most popular and commonly used Web hosting platforms and applications with industry-leading Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and connectivity to its global IP network, WorldCom can address the reliability, hosting performance, scalability and security needs of global businesses of all sizes. WorldCom’s newest offerings will be globally deployed and distributed in markets across the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific in 2001.
“With these pre-packaged Web hosting services, WorldCom can meet the hosting needs of any business, regardless of scale, with unmatched efficiency, security and reliability,” said Ron McMurtrie, vice president of E-Services for WorldCom. “These offerings are a significant move forward for the industry as a whole. It’s the kind of market-moving innovation that is at the heart of our ‘generation d’ initiative – to set the new e-business standard for the digital generation.”
Managed hosting has traditionally been limited to custom-built solutions which can lead to a costly and lengthy sales and go-to-market process along with a number of technical challenges. With these new packages, WorldCom is able to reduce the time, cost, technical issues and sales cycles associated with deploying an e-business solution and jumpstart a customer’s e-business plans.
“Pre-packaged offerings are part of the next evolution of the Web hosting market,” said Courtney Quinn, senior analyst, The Yankee Group. “With its new portfolio of fully managed, productized Web hosting solutions that run over the company’s high performance global IP network, WorldCom is positioning itself to be a leader in the market and to take advantage of the growing demand for these types of services.”
Leveraging the company’s alliance with managed hosting services leader Digex, WorldCom’s new offerings address six levels of hosting needs from a basic Web site to a high-end, high availability e-commerce site.
The six hosting packages are available today on the Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Sun Solaris platforms. Each of the six levels of hosting packages contain hardware, software, Internet connectivity, support and industry-leading SLAs. As an essential part of the hosting solutions, technical service and support ranges from 24 x 7 help desk support to a full, dedicated support team with a single point of contact.
WorldCom’s customers have the advantage of choosing from a range of hosting solutions from Web Server Colocation to Shared Hosting to Custom Hosting Services to meet their application needs. For businesses that prefer to manage their own servers, but require a robust infrastructure and 24 x 7 infrastructure management and monitoring, WorldCom Web Server Colocation services meet that need.
For small and medium-sized businesses with basic Web site needs, WorldCom offers Shared Hosting Services that offer reliable, high performance solutions at a very moderate cost. For Web-centric businesses requiring the most advanced hosting solutions, WorldCom offers Custom Hosting Services that provide custom designed and engineered Web sites to meet very specific e-business technical requirements.
WorldCom’s suite of global Web hosting products run over the company’s global IP ne
twork and through its data centers located throughout the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific. Throughout 2001, the company will complete its $1.2 billion build-out of its global data center footprint.
