i am preparing to assume a contract from an alabanza client and it is unclear if the jump to $800/month will be contractually binding. i was considering moving the accounts to a vdi server at the end of the $400/month year,
however nobody at alabanza will give me a straight answer.
Will i be contractually obligated to assume another 12 months at $800/month?

thanks

They can't give you a straight answer because that's how they run their business. They make everything as fuzzy as possible, then they will decide later how they want to treat you.


I signed up 1-2 months ago, they change the contract at will. And the support has gotten worse, the bugs are everywhere, and there's been alot of downtime.


I would go straight to VDI and stay away from Alabanza if i were you.

Thanks for the advice, has anyone had experience with raqspace- they seem to be good however i have heard of system crashes and securtiy problems- they seem to offer additional services that i would think would be included in a regular monthly fee.

I have heard nothing but good things about raqspace, their prices are a little high though.

Originally posted by miami_g
i am preparing to assume a contract from an alabanza client and it is unclear if the jump to $800/month will be contractually binding. i was considering moving the accounts to a vdi server at the end of the $400/month year,
however nobody at alabanza will give me a straight answer.
Will i be contractually obligated to assume another 12 months at $800/month?If you assume a contract, all of it applies to you. But if you're asking if you'd be obligated to stay for a second year at $800, the answer is "no," because the original contract doesn't require that. Alabanza's contracts are renewable at the mutual agreement of the two parties. You have no obligation beyond the contract term, which might be monthly, quarterly, or for a full year. Confusion reigns because no matter what the actual contract term, it specifies what the price will be beyond that term if you (and Alabanza) decide to extend the contract. So, a one-year contract ends after a year, but specifies what price will be available to you after that year.

So: if you stay, you should expect your price to increase to $800 after the first 12 months of the contract. But you don't have to stay.

Assuming one planned to finish the years contract at 400/month what would happen if in the 11th month one told alabanza to renegotiate the new fee or you move to the competition?

Has anyone tried this--business is business.
of course from what i read on this board it appears their behavior towards you depends on attitude so if you rock the boat would they ignore you in the future?

One of the problems you'll face, is that there isn't an all in one pre-packaged solution like Alabanza. This greatly reduces the leverage you'll have. I think they will tell you that these are the costs, and you can pay them or move.

RE: Alabanza v. Raqspace

raqspace touts they offer a good control panel and they now also offer for $50/month webbased email and their ecommerce software is superior to alabanza what other aspects would make one choose alabanza over raqspace?
i will begin another thread re ecommerce

thanks all

If you want to compare the two, Rackspace and Alabanza, I would choose Alabanza over Rackspace. This of course assumes that Alabanza is going to get it's act back together in the next few months.

But as Greg said, I'd run screaming to Ultraspeed. Cheaper prices and better service.

Originally posted by MikeA
But as Greg said, I'd run screaming to Ultraspeed. Cheaper prices and better service.

What is the URL of Ultraspeed? I have tried http://www.ultraspeed.com, but its not working. Will that be ultraspeed.net -or- ultraspeedusa.com?

Regards,
Ray

www.ultraspeedusa.net (http://www.ultraspeedusa.net)

Originally posted by MikeA
If you want to compare the two, Rackspace and Alabanza, I would choose Alabanza over Rackspace.

After doing some careful research on server companies, in my personal opinion Alabanza still has a lead over the others in terms of features and automation. So I agree with MikeA and would choose Alabanza for the short term.

However, I also feel that it won't me long before Alabanza's competitors catch up with similar levels of service. It seems like in about anywhere between two to six months... assuming similar features are properly bug-tested and run smoothly.

So it would perhaps be a very wise thing not to sign a long binding one year contract with Alabanza now. If you decide to go with Alabanza for some reason, stick to the shortest contract possible.

Better still, I am hearing that UltraspeedUSA plans to offer a similar kind of automation from November this year... that's just a couple of weeks away. You should check with them clearly on this matter before you make a decision.

Hope this helps.

Learner

Is Ultraspeed a VDI-based hosting company? If so, why not go directly to VDI for server?

Regards,
Ray

Yep, and you'd have to price the two. Sometimes, as with resellers, you can actually find a lower price through a reseller than going direct. Example: VDI leases serverX at $600/mo, while ultraspeed gets a $200 discount on the same serverX (due to volume) and resells the server for $500/mo. Just an example of what you might see.

Actually Chicken.

We buy X mbps and X server space and do the rest :).

So we formulate our prices based on that , we don't have any packaged deals from VDI :)

Sorry Daniel, I guess I should have let you take that one. I only meant that as an *example* of how it could work that the person pays less through you guys. Glad you clarified it as I don't want to mislead everyone :)

Originally posted by DanielP
Actually Chicken.

We buy X mbps and X server space and do the rest :).

So we formulate our prices based on that , we don't have any packaged deals from VDI :)



how does that work. Do you house your servers?

David