Hey all!

I'm trying to gather some real pertinent data on the larger players in the cpanel based hosting area. Before I decide which route I want to go I want some hard numbers. So, any input on the following companies would be helpful, if you have some inside knowledge. I currently deal with two of them, and will input some info myself shortly. These are all decent companies, regardless of a few complaints, so I need to dig deeper into some hard facts:

Considerations:
VDI
Burstnet
Site5
Ventures Online
Interserver

Any other LARGE Cpanel hosting players I missed? add them.

The Questions (answer for any you know, not just the largest please):

1. Which company has the highest sales revenues?
2. Which company has been in business the longest?
3. Which company has the most employees
4. Which company has the most tech support staff and/or sysadmin staff?
5. Which company has the most server clients?
6. Which company has the most virtual hosting clients?
7. Which company buys the most copies of Cpanel & WebHostManager?
8. Which company has the most control over their servers, network, bandwidth, future?

Any other pertinent similar questions you can think of?

So, what I am getting at is:

1. Which company do you think is the most financially stable?
2. Which company do you think will actually be in business several years down the road?
3. Which company is best posed (in the position) to lead the pack?

(And no, the answer is not "use plesk2", I have already to much clients/time invested in Cpanel usage/training/learning to go that route!)


Thank you for any input!


Hostpolicia

Some of these questions can only be answered by the hosts themselves, or their employees. I'm not certain many will want to release this information.

<< Some of these questions can only be answered by the hosts themselves, or their employees. I'm not certain many will want to release this information. >>


This should turn out to be an interesting thread!

I think the only reason some hosts might not answer the above questions is that they have something to hide....that or they want consumers to think they are alot bigger then they really are. Some might say that the info is "none of your business", and they are quite entitled to that, but I don't think responding to these questions will hurt at all...as it is already an established fact that they are being asked because they ARE the larger CPanel companies....which IS an accomplishment in itself....congrats!
I am not saying that all this info should/can be made public, but certainly most of it can. BurstNET has nothing to hide, and we will be glad to respond to most of the questions asked.
I think by the responses we give that BurstNET will place quite well in this assessment.
I am quite curious to see how many other Cpanel based companies will respond with info here. A few large Cpanel companies were left off the list above as well...that should probably be considered...like Plusweb, Pegasus, etc...
I am going to talk to our CEO and find out what info I can give on the above questions, and then I will come back and post here. The only question I can really see a problem with is the sales revenue question, of which I think we will not release exact figures (but may make a generalized statement on...).

Also, I think it should be pointed out that it is a common misconception about the size of some of the major players in the market. People think of Dialtone and companies like it as being huge...but they are not. Sure....the giants like Exodus, RackSpace, AT&T, IBM are all on a different playing field....but most of the popular mid level hosting companies are not.
For example....Net Nation....they have been around forever...almost everyone that follows the industry thinks they are huge.....guess what....they are a publicly traded company and they only do $6,000,000 in business every year....
I think the public would be surprised at the amount of business Dialtone does as well....they are not as big as people think they are....
The point is is that this is a VERY young industry...and a good company still can make it big...with alot of hard work and the right product....and the larger mid-size hosting companies are still playing in your league...so good luck to you all.

Regards,
Sean R.
BurstNET

Just curious, where does your data on DI come from?

I honestly do not remember...but I was reading an industry magazine/article somewhere...and I remember being quiet surprised.....I had thought it would have been alot higher.
They publicly state they host 2500 servers on their website (though it says 1600 in other outdated parts of their site). Rackspace hosts 3500 I believe. Keep in mind Racskace charges alot more than Dialtone though...who's prices are quite good.



Sean R.
BurstNET

Rackspace prices are higher and they do have more servers so Im sure their revenue exceeds DI. I was just curious where I could pick up the details or interviews with DI since we are co-located there right now.

I believe Dialtone Internet has sales around 3.5 million a year.

I think for alot of Private Companies they will be reluctant to release info.

Regardless of what some say or others say, i think that though its a young industry, it is very saturated.

Joe

Originally posted by BurstNET
<< Some of these questions can only be answered by the hosts themselves, or their employees. I'm not certain many will want to release this information. >>


This should turn out to be an interesting thread!

I think the only reason some hosts might not answer the above questions is that they have something to hide....that or they want consumers to think they are alot bigger then they really are.

[SNIP]

Regards,
Sean R.
BurstNET

Now, that above statement isn't very fair, in light of the fact that you didn't provide any information. I don't see why a company would have an issue with saying how many employee's that have, etc., but to tell people their net earnings at the end of the year is understandable. The facr is, any company that's really any big at all, won't be going to these forums, so don't expect some will respond (like DI, Rackspace, etc.). Surely DI isn't Exodus, but they are certainly larger than any other host or NOC that participates here -- and certainly large enough to not expect them to participate here to give a response. Finally, I'm not sure why this list anyway, since any host/provider/datacenter can get Cpanel licenses if they want to anyway, right?

<< Now, that above statement isn't very fair, in light of the fact that you didn't provide any information. >>

I said we would be providing information, as soon as I tak to our CEO to see how much he wants me to provide.

<< I don't see why a company would have an issue with saying how many employee's that have, etc., but to tell people their net earnings at the end of the year is understandable. >>

I stated that...
"The only question I can really see a problem with is the sales revenue question"

Other than that though...most of the questions pertained to infrastructure and staffing, which any company without something to hide should have no problem divulging to the public.
Certainly companies have the right not to divulge any of this info at all...but if they feel they are properly structured, or being run properly, I don't see why they should have a problem with most of those questions. I can see some companies avoiding the issue though because the public believes they are larger than they really are, when in reality they are only being run by 1-2 people.

Looks like the person was inquiring about companies that specialize in CPanel based hosting...not companies that just happen to offer it with 5-6 other control panels because the market demands it. Kinda looks like he/she focused on companies frequenting the forum, or discussed here alot, regardless of the fact that you can get cpanel at any NOC almost.

Regardless, I very much am waiting to see how many hosts respond to this post myself.
Very interesting reading :-)

Sean R.
BurstNET

True enough, I just figured you'd have known how many employee's you have and whatnot. I do agree that it should be interesting, but I think I also agree with you that some of the providers mentioned won't respond, or respond honestly. One that you mentioned yourself, I know no one even works for except the guy that owns it... Pretty scary, especially when the guy doesn't even care about the clients or do support. I too wonder what people would say when faced with hard questions for them to want to publically say, or resort to fibbing. Anyway, there's some good choices on his list, so I'm sure he'll find some suitable options.

<< I just figured you'd have known how many employee's you have and whatnot. >>

Yes, I do know offhand...I just don't want to release any info yet, until I clear it with the rest of the people here. I will be posting some info later today though...and am curious how many other hosts follow suit.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Originally posted by Chicken
Some of these questions can only be answered by the hosts themselves, or their employees. I'm not certain many will want to release this information.

Company's like Interland, Interliant, Exodus and Global Crossing who are public are required to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (if they're a reporting company on the NYSE, NASDAQ, S&P 500, AMEX, or any Dow Jones component or market excluding the NASDAQ OTC-BB and the National Quotation Bureau, or Pink Sheets). If you check the EDGAR system at the SEC you can get plenty of reports on a company if they're publically traded in the United States.

http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/formpick.htm

As far as private companys; good luck -- They have no legal requirements to report *any* information to you (well, they have to tell you something, but I don't want to list it all). If they don't want to tell you, they don't have to.

Hope this helps :D

Originally posted by Tim_Greer

they are certainly larger than any other host or NOC that participates here

How can you be so sure of that?

Originally posted by nopzor


How can you be so sure of that?

Easy, run a poll.

How many hosts aqt WHT house over 2500 servers?

That won't neccesarily work.

For example, we've got dozens of servers that we bill over $3,000 a month each for. These servers are for large clients that run customized applications and need full support and admin services.

Let's say that we have (hypothetically), 50 of these servers, billed at (hypothetically), $3000 ech That's $150,000 per month, for the equivalent of 1000 servers for a low end host.

You have to look at more -- such as the business model and the clientel.


Originally posted by Jag


Easy, run a poll.

How many hosts aqt WHT house over 2500 servers?

Fair enough, but now remove the (hypothetically) from that scenerio to get to the facts. Im willing to bet DI is larger than any host that frequents WHT.

Jaq,

There is an interview on Host Index with DI http://www.hostindex.com/

Tim, you seem to be very technical. Can I see how many servers a company hosts if I have a server located in a data center maybe a network scan?. Or maybe IP numbers bought with ARIN?

I think this is probably the easiest way to check the providers number of servers.

Romero

I'll only say that it will have to be your choice to believe the private information released here by companies as it would be hard to verify the information posted. I've seen claims, and that's all I've taken them as. I'm not saying that anyone lies here, that isn't the point. I'm just saying that certain facts stated do not match certain patterns of the posts I've seen here and thus *I've* found the information questionable.

No names, that (again) isn't the point. This is a general comment, and maybe I'm just cynical. I couldn't porive it one way or another, which is why I'm not going so far as to say, "This hosts lies like a rug!" I could say that my private company earns $1,000,000/yr. and we have 3,000 servers and you couldn't prove otherwise. That's my point.

Originally posted by romero
Jaq,

There is an interview on Host Index with DI http://www.hostindex.com/


Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

Originally posted by nopzor
That won't neccesarily work.

Let's say that we have (hypothetically), 50 of these servers, billed at (hypothetically), $3000 ech That's $150,000 per month, for the equivalent of 1000 servers for a low end host.

You have to look at more -- such as the business model and the clientel.




I was speaking more specifically of actual servers, not how many people or sites are on each server -- just the actual physical server. Someone could have 10,000 client's on 50 servers and charge $500 a month for each client on each server -- albeit unworkable, that is sort of how i feel comparing the other's. If we are talking about earnings, sure, you have a point. I just wasn't looking at it that way. It would certainly depend on the costs, profits and how much these providers charge. I'm not aware of any datacenter, NOC or provider that participates here that is larger though...

I suppose I could be wrong, but it's not easy to prove any of it from our knowledge, information and perspective. As for the scanning to see, I don't know off hand any realistic way to gauge how many actual physical servers a data center might have. I suppose there could be a means to do that, but I can't think of anything offhand, and definitely nothing that would be acceptable to do on a network. I guess we're left just accepting the information we see people post as truth or not. I guess I'm just not concerned enough to care, but some people might be. I think Chicken said it best, I can't really add anything else to it.