~ UK small business set to benefit from offer which cuts through the cloud hype ~

31st March 2010 - Fasthosts, the UK's largest web hosting company has launched Rise, an infrastructure-as-a-service provider dedicated to the channel, enabling thousands of resellers to move into the lucrative cloud computing space.

Rise (www.rise-partners.co.uk), a brand new company from Fasthosts, will provide cloud and dedicated infrastructure as well as end-to-end solutions for channel partners to either resell, or offer as a white label service under their own brand.

Andy Burton, CEO of Fasthosts and Rise, said: "There is a lot of talk about cloud computing and much of it is hype right now. Vendors obviously thought that if they made enough noise then consumers would find them but that's not how many small and mid sized businesses in particular buy IT. They’re aware of the cloud, but are often confused about what it delivers and how they can utilise it, and usually rely on a third party ‘trusted advisor and supplier’ to guide them. What we're addressing with this launch is how SMBs buy IT, not just why they should. By providing cloud services to the channel partners, we’re enabling those companies that have the trusted relationship with the end customer to deliver the benefits in a way that is clearly understood by the customer."

Rise will ensure that the IT and telecommunications channels have the opportunity to embrace the considerable benefits that cloud infrastructure can offer in terms of agility, scalability and cost effectiveness.

Burton continues, “This, we hope, is seen as good news for the channel after many predicted cloud computing would be bad news for businesses who traditionally sold packaged software or on-premise hardware. If anything this should give resellers an even stronger bond with their customers as they can continue to provide on-premise solutions as they always have, but can now add hosted solutions to that portfolio as well. A combination of the two looks the best bet for some years to come."

Rise is offering value-added resellers and systems integrators the opportunity to partner with them through a new and beneficial programme to add cloud solutions to their portfolio as a complement to their existing business and expand their available market.

Rise is in turn launching a new platform called - Data Centre on Demand, an Infrastructure as a Service offering based upon the Microsoft Dynamic Data Centre. It will serve as a showcase for Microsoft's Hyper-V technology, enabling virtualisation efficiencies in the data centre which can pass scale as well as cost- and energy-saving onto users.

Bob Tarzey analyst and director Quocirca, comments, “Many SMBs look to their resellers for advice on new technology developments, such as cloud based services. The cloud has a lot to offer, especially when it comes to commodity applications like email, backup and web hosting; enterprise class capability at SMB prices. Resellers need to look at how they rebalance their portfolios to include cloud based services and continue to help their SMB customers procure the most cost effective IT solutions. To achieve this, resellers need to identify cloud service providers with a strong reseller focus that understand the indirect sales model and are prepared to share the annuity revenue that cloud services generate.”

Jeff Lenton, In2itive Business Solutions (www.in2itive.biz) – “We’ve been party to the Fasthosts Internet Group channel proposition for a time now, and believe this is a service that the IT consultancies, VAR’s and SI’s will benefit from. The support to build cloud services into the channel proposition is clear, and the focus from the Rise account teams on the partner growth is very welcome.”