Banks – Banking n Finance » Finance

The Planet, the world figurehead in IT hosting, today debated its results for the period finished July 31, 2009. The Planet provides quarterly updates to its purchasers, business partners and prospects with info relative to new initiatives and its progress.

“We continue seeing the most serious money expansion from both our biggest shoppers and our complicated infrastructure solutions, which include virtual and non-public racks,” recounted CEO and general manager Douglas J Erwin.

“Customer satisfaction stays at record-high levels in our call center and in our information centers. “The industrial environment is still challenging, though we have seen inspiring signs that provide buoyancy, particularly in the level of interest we have seen from new customers,” Erwin continued.

“While we are experiencing slower expansion this year, the fact is that we keep growing, and the company is financially stable and well-positioned to endure the trials of this business climate. We continue to target strategic goals and the growth of the new-product portfolio that will supply the long-term foundation for our expansion.

With the appointing of 2 senior operatives, Duke Skarda, vice chairman of IT and Software Development, and Tom Blair as VP, World Sales, we are adding heavy talent experience and DNA to our management team. “We finished quarter two with continued solid EBITDA performance in the 30%+ range, and we had a particularly strong money flow quarter,” related Chief Finance Officer Kevin Klausmeyer.

“In fact, regardless of the troublesome industrial conditions, our liquidity and capital resources are as powerful as they have ever been.  Our money flow for the first bit of the year represents the strongest performance in any half year period in our history.

Second Quarter Highlights

New Customers: The company added more than 1,000 new customers in the first quarter. New data from Netcraft reveals that The Planet now hosts 18.5 million Web sites.

Highest-Performing Storage Cloud: The company issued a new report that shows The Planet Storage Cloud outperforms similar cloud storage platforms in both read and write tests. With its benefits of on-premise storage, elastic cloud design and utility-based billing, it delivers transfer speeds that are more than three times faster than the leading competitors.

Dallas Metroplex Colocation Data Center Opens: The company hosted a ribbon-cutting event for its new 106,000-square-foot data center in the north Dallas suburb of Plano. Attended by 200 people, the opening included remarks from Chairman and CEO Douglas J. Erwin and Plano City Manager Thomas H. Muehlenbeck.

London Data Center Online: For customers with European end-users, the company announced the official opening of its first international data center in London. The new facility – the company’s eighth data center – offers geographic redundancy, enhanced performance and Gigabit connectivity.

Nehalem Servers Added to Portfolio: New servers powered by Intel’s next-generation Nehalem microarchitecture processor technology were added to the company’s server line-up. Based on the Dell PowerEdge hardware platform, the new servers are packaged as the Dual Xeon 5530.

Northstar Managed Hosting Customer Videos: The company issued two new customer success videos from its Northstar portfolio: The DJ Booth (www.djbooth.net), with more than 700,000 visitors each month, provides disc jockeys, music professionals and trendsetters with a platform to hear and discuss the best in urban music and hip hop. BreakThisRecord.com (www.breakthisrecord.com) is a free challenge site that extends opportunities for anyone – from individuals, schools or even groups and clubs – to post videos, establish their own personal records and defy others to best their performance.

SpeedFC Video: The company featured a new video with colocation customer SPEED FC (www.speedfc.com). SPEED FC is a single-source provider of business-to-business and direct-to-consumer customized, integrated and outsourced transaction management services for both traditional and e-commerce retailers. With customers that include some of the most highly regarded, well-known brands in the country, the company provides a suite of end-to-end solutions, including fulfillment, customer care, and Web development, hosting and marketing.

Stratecast White Paper Underscores Hosting Value: The company issued a new white paper from market research firm Stratecast, a division of Frost & Sullivan. The data supplies conclusive evidence that The Planet’s enterprise-grade hosted IT infrastructure reduces operating costs for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) by 51 percent over a three-year period. According to the report, hosting places increased control into the hands of SMBs, in addition to offering greater technical and business flexibility. Stratecast predicts that hosted infrastructure will become a preferred method for supporting the IT needs of these companies.

Senior IT Executive Appointment: The company announced the appointment of Duke S. Skarda as vice president, Information Technology and Software Development. Reporting to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Douglas J. Erwin, Skarda is responsible for the company’s entire span of IT activities, including core IT operations, and software development and implementation for customer-facing solutions.

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 18.5 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Northstar Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24×7×365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit www.theplanet.com.