Lots of talk about alabanza going under.
does anyone have first hand knowledge?
their actions do not speak well for any company trying to get market share!

Alabanza is NOT going under. No matter what you may hear, I personnaly don't think that they are going to file for bankrupcy or anything like that.

Alabanza has a STRONG hold on the market with over 1000 servers that they are charging for. They have a great product. While I do think that their pricing and overall business plan needs work, I still think that they are a good company.

If you are new to hosting or are planning on getting your first server, Alabanza probably isn't the way to go. With servers costing $800+, it's just not a good choice for a newby.

With the introduction of companies like Ultraspeedusa, cheap servers, Dialtoneinternet and others, you can get a better and cheaper server for a lot less up front cash.

However if you are a large company wanting a more stable environment (not that the above are weak or have bad service) then Alabanza might be for you.

Something to consider is that the hook that Alabanza had is not as strong as it was a year or two ago. While they do have a nice control panel, the CP that Ultraspeedusa has is just as good, in my opinion, and is fully customizable. Also other companies, to include Ultraspeedusa, are coming out with their own automated billing software packages. The last I heard, Ultraspeed's will be done sometime near the end of November and will interface with 5 major frontend companies like cybercash and authorize.net, where Alabanza's only interfaces with one, cybercash.

Alabanza is destroying their business because their new prices are at least twice as high as 800 US$ / month.

They DID have a great support and they DID have a great uptime. But now you may wait 2 or 7 days for an answer or your site may be down for 4 hours or more (like yesterday).

July this year, I signed a contract with Alabanza. It states, that I will pay 400 US$ the first year and 800 US$ thereafter. Two days ago I got an email where they finally state, that the 1 US$ charge per controlpanel is monthly (until now nobody knew if it is monthly, yearly or once).

A couple of hours ago, I sent my calculation to Alabanza. Believe it or not:*In the best case it is twice 800 US$. In my supposed worst case it is 6 times 800 US$ (!):

Conservative Calculation:
If I have 500 domains with 30 shopping carts and 10 nameservers
800$ server price
465$ controlpanels
300$ AlaCart
50$ Nameservers

= 1615$ monthly (!)

Standard Calculation:
If I have 500 domains with 100 shopping carts and 30 nameservers
800$ server price
465$ controlpanels
1000$ AlaCart
150$ Nameservers

= 2415$ monthly (!!!)

Extended Calculation in the case my business is going well (that's what's the purpose of my business)
If I have 1000 domains with 200 shopping carts and 50 nameservers
800$ server price
1965$ controlpanels (465 * 1 US$ + 500 * 3 US$)
2000$ AlaCart
250$ Nameservers

= 5015$ monthly (!!!!!)

(the above calculations do not include the 1 US$ charge for IP addresses exceeding 500)

Is Alabanza going under? I don't know. But ask yourself a question: Are you ready to pay 5015 US$/monthly for a server, when it includes 50 GB of traffic and you have to pay the premium price of 10 US$ per GIG per month for traffic beyond the 50 GIGs?

Are you ready to sell domains with no controlpanel?

I am not. And many other people are not ready for this and thus I suppose that the new price policy of Alabanza is not good for them. It is good for VDI and for Dialtone and for whoever but nor for them. Unfortunately, they will be the last who notices it.

kosmo

Solution:

Charge customer an extra $1 per plan to cover the control panel cost. $1 a month extra will not be a big deal for your customers!

They only charge for shopping cart if you use the newer version of Ala Cart. Put it in as an option for your customer... the Ala Cart 1.0 is free to your customer.

Charge your resellers for nameservers if they wish to use them.

Dynasty Host:

It will be difficult to charge more if you have made a tight calculation. You may have sold your accounts for US$ 10. Now you say, "I will charge 1 US$ for your CP, I will charge 10 US$ for your AlaCart and I will charge US$ 5 for your nameserver".

This makes 26 US$ instead of 10. And you have just covered your extra expenses without making any profit. Is this your understanding of business? Would you accept three times the price from your telephone company? From your UPS? From United Airlines? And if they drible their price: you can always choose the next competitor. Hosting Business is something different: You can't change daily or weekly. This is business based on trust.

Will my clients trust me if I raise my prices from 200% to 625%? I suppose not. This is the problem. My clients would accept a 10% price raise of the services. But not 200% to 625%.

Simple Maths. Simple Economics.


kosmo

No one can predict anything, simple reason, we dunt know anything about there other cleints? or the new ones they are getting? do we?

I am greatful for all the advice.

i have been looking at DI they now offer a special with miva canned and ok server specs, but i have heard bad things about their control panel, and they do not offer web based email.

FOR EVERYONE OUT THERE PROVIDING HOSTING HOW SIGNIFICANT IS THE ISSUE OF WEB BASED EMAIL?

does it make or break sales and if so by what %

thankyou

DI has the yucky 95% percentile rule for bandwidth! :(

mimami_G ... webmail hans't seem to be a major factor, I don't see allot of people asking for it (I don't remeber anybody actually asking for it), but take a look at Ultraspeedusa.com as well, they have a great Server plan with e great CP (and even webmail)

You could always slap a php (or other) webmail script up for that off your hosting site. Don't let this stop ya'

Well, as a newbie, I would not go with Alabanza.
Their prices are to high for me :(
While on the other hand, 95%ile rule is really scares me.

Then, I think VDI is a good choice.
They have a good controlpanel, personal SMTP and more.

Any comments about VDI?

Thx.
Soda

I think http://ultraspeedusa.com is much more better than DI.

Contact Daniel, he'll help you out. :)

Alabanza does have webmail.
They added it in the last upgrade along with Java servlets.

Have a look at:
http://www.hostroute.com/up/

Its possible to make a form that lets you log in from any web page so that your end users can make a fully customised log in page.

Before this came on line I was doing a cobranded webmail thing with Mailstart.com.
You can see my efforts at
http://www.hostroute.com/webmail.html

Gordon

It ain't the same company it was a year ago. Their biz-model is changing and the strong-hold they've had with their CP & automation is rapidly dwindling. Needless to say, the competition is loving it.

-Scott

[Edited by Scotto on 10-26-2000 at 06:35 AM]

I am greatful for all the advice.

FOR EVERYONE OUT THERE PROVIDING HOSTING HOW SIGNIFICANT IS THE ISSUE OF WEB BASED EMAIL?



I've had one maybe two clients ask about it. Hope that helps.

I don't remember too many clients asking for web based email either but since we've had it they can't seem to live without it.

I actually had a customer signing up today, he represents a town boys and girls club, one of his request was 250 POP 3 accounts (He will be using about 230) .. I told him about Webmail .. he told me no thank you, if I need it i'll use yahoo to log into my pop3 ... end of story

Checkout a product called neomail, it is available as freeware from sourceforge. It is VERY good and the author is helpfull in configureing it to specific platforms. It installs straight "Out of the box" or more apropriately out of the tar archive on most linux systems.
It is all perl based and doesn't require any strange libs either. You may have to mess with the cgi-wrapper on the cobalts but other than that it's a good free solution to this problem.

Sam

My experience with the web based mail has shown me not to many people are really interested in it. There are a few that absolutely love it, but I would have to say only about 5% of my clients use it, and less then that use it on a regular bases. It is a nice feature when going out of town but other then that my clients have not really found a use for it yet. Most everyone that travels on a regular bases has a laptop, and use there own mail software. I see it as like a spare tire, it is great to have in the right situation, but my no means is it used or thought about on a daily bases.

I guess it would be an idea to choose a webmail package, test it to make sure it works, then just install it on demand for those who want it, and charge a once-off fee for it....

Really, it isn't a big deal. Off your site upload a php script. I uploaded Feriepost (available at hotscripts.com - php section). You can see how simple it is at:

http://www.webwurkx.com/mail/index.php3

note: you can set it to check mail from one server, or leave that option open.

Many of our customers started out with one server. Either leased or owned by them and then colocated. This usally allows them severl hundred customers on the machine. You really dont have to be made of money to do this. If ytou own your own box i you can get away with an outco of about 350.00 a month. We see folks all the time that dont have a clue how much or how little it takes to enter the business. I see people get taken to the cleaners all the time. It really is a shame. Currently one of the big hosts the mainly sells their service and control panel use to resellers ( ala***) is raising prices. This will not hurt the little guy to much but will really hurt the one that is starting to make it. The guy that has worked hard to get that 1 or 2 hundred clients is really going to feel it. I personally dont agree wuth the price increase. Bandwidth and hardware costs are going down to the colo centers like us so I just dont see how this is justified in my opinion

To answer the original post, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Alabanza go under in the medium term (2-3 years). They appear to be at the mercy of VCs and have totally lost their reputation for solid performance and good support.

And yes, I had a bad experience with them. I was ready to sign a contract, just before the end of their $400 special offer, when they hiked their prices. I asked for a little extra time (1 week to be precise) to reconsider on the basis of the revised terms and this request was declined. I reiterated that if such an extension was not considered courteous in the wake of the price change, then I would not do business with them. They declined again.

I have since written to the sales manager, Geary Deptula, on many occassions asking for his comments on why it was not considered a basic business courtesy to allow an extension to the offer given that a hefty price increase had been imposed in the interim. He has ignored most of these requests, and on the couple of occassions that he has bothered to respond it has only been to state (and I quote):

"Correspondence with clients are not ignored. My understanding of your relationship with Alabanza is that you were once interested in utilizing our web hosting automation, but decided not to do so. Therefore, you are not a client. I am only responding to this one, last e-mail as a personal courtesy to you."

In other words, because I am not a client, I am not worthy of Mr.Deptula's time - even if he is the sales manager and I dislike the way I have been treated by his department. Furthermore, my concerns apparently do not matter to him or his company.

Draw your own conclusions. Mine are that Alabanza doesn't want new business, doesn't care about small matters like basic business courtesy, and doesn't care about anybody's perception of them.

Best wishes to all,
Speedie

(Who is waiting for UltraSpeed or Site5 to get automated billing going)

A lot of this claims that Alabanza is going to go under simply do not make much sense to me. I mean the reasons by some folks believe this. I agree, they seem not to want new business. Their customer service is at time slow to respond and I've heared they do not ans their sales lines. One guy left 20 messages-he claims- and no one responded. But I think their servers and connections remain of top quality and I don't see any solid reason to fear of negative changes soon. Does anyone know of alternatives to Alabanza?



Yannick Bandy
http://www.hosting24-7.com
Reseller Plans Starting at $3/mo!
No Set up fees!

Originally posted by Ybandy
Does anyone know of alternatives to Alabanza?

Well as Speedie mentioned, Ultraspeed, Site5, and VDI itself are working on automated billing solutions, and some CP's such as plesk, sphere (or is it sphera?), and ensime (something like that), have similar funstions.

I'd say, not exactly.

I don't think noone can predict the future unless you like some witches or like people on TV.

*clears throat*

Our automated billing solution is halfway there at this stage, invoicing is functioning and is designed to allow multiple accounts per customer, as well as one time and recurring charges.
Building our auto setup script (which some customers are already using) into PHM will be within the week, and credit card processing is to come next week.

PHM already includes account management, dedicated server configurator, technical support ticketing software (like wonderdesk) with built in escalation to ourselves should a further level of support be needed for you or your clients.




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Admin notice : sig removed because of violation of 4-line limit.


[Edited by BC on 11-09-2000 at 03:46 AM]

Originally posted by Jordan
Our automated billing solution is halfway there...

In case any of you are wondering, Jordan is from Ultraspeed (uk), and I know that Matt said that site5's had a functioning prototype as well. All the ones I mentioned aren't quite ready yet, but should be soon, so keep an eye out. I know this is something that is extremely desireable for hosts, so if anyone knows of other automated solutions, please share!

A big thumbs down to Alabanza from my point of perspective.

1. They raised their prices, what was once affordable, at $635.00 / month is now going to be over $900.00 with the CP charges.
2. We recently asked them to install PHP4 since the PHP on our server was 3.02 (which brings me to a whole different story, never mind).

So they supposedly installed PHP4 or so we believe because now the server is whacked. The control panel objects no longer function, all the clients mysql database are completely gone, some of them held a lot of data. Thinks like mail manager produces script errors.

We wrote them this morning telling them that there is a problem with the mysql server, please check into it as some of the sites that we host on that server require mysql to function at all, they are pure php driven sites.

This evening there is still no response.

We wrote them again almost pleading that they look into the problem. Still we are sitting here sipping coffee waiting for a response, and nothing is coming through.

We have watched their support degrade over the last couple of months, often times taking days to get a response to the most simplest of support requests.

Are they going to go out of business anytime soon, I doubt it, I think they are of the mentality of those people that believe that if something costs $900.00 per month than certainly it must be worth that much.

I remember a client that I used to work with that had a stock company listing site, and he was fetching over 25g's to list a new and upcoming company on his site, the only reason why people paid it is because it was costing so much so surely it must have been worth it. This for a site with only 4,000 members which often lost over 30 each time they sent out another member newsletter.

So, they will probably attract bigger business's but they have lost my business, I just signed up with another company tonight, who shall remain nameless since they havn't gotten the best of reviews here even though I have 5 aquaintenances that have ded servers with them and have no problem, and no longer give any more business to Alabanza.

I really found the huge jump in prices as well as the $1.00 per CP charges offensive and showed little regard for their customers.

Sure they realize that some of the bigger clients "cant" leave them, and that's what their counting on. For example, xxxxx.com has over 120 servers with them, how in the world could they possibly move their whole operation to another provider, they can't, but someone like me that only has 50 clients on the server can easily move to our new provider.

Cheers,
Brainbox.

Wow...I can almost feel your frustration. Our company leases from Alabanza aswell and we have experienced some of the problems you are facing now with them but I don't think on that scale. I've read a few similar complaints like this with merit. Their tech support just does'nt respond in time. But I still think it is the hosting company responsibility to hire skilled technicians that can quickly step in and take care of situations like this. As long as they provide reliable, good uptime, and you have good technicians things should not be that difficult. But frankly I sometimes wonder what Alabanza's business strategy is. Prices have gone up and services don't seem to have followed along according to some of their clients.

Yannick Bandy
http://www.hosting24-7.com
Reseller Plans Starting at $3.95/mo
No Set-up Fees

From what Alabanza is telling it's customers, is that the price upgrade is because of upgraded servers, and upgraded tech support etc. etc. etc.

Well after a long and lengthy conversation with them, they did agree to le us keep the same server and only charge us the extra $1.00 per CP.

So, my business partners are going to stick it out with them, while I on the other hand have already signedup, configured and am in the process of setting up a new hosting company with another provider of ded servers.

Alabanza did manage to fix the problem, about 11am this morning, well after 24 hours, the server seems back to normal, in the meantime I've had to field complaints from "my" clients on why their sites are not working, I guess Im probably to blame here as I did promise them the world, by telling them how reliable, stable, and how much we have invested in tech support between our clients and us, guess I should have just said,
"Yeah, signup with us, we'll put your site online on our server, and if somthing goes wrong we'll put in an email to tech support over at Alabanza and get it fixed when they get around to it", "If you site is down over 24 hours, sorry, move it somewhere else".

Oh well, heres hoping that this next company Im with is able to provide us a stable situation so that we can grow our business and not have to worry about them jacking up the prices in a year at over 200% (my math skills are off, what is $650 to $950, difference of 300.00 but can't figure the percentage)(oh well, you get the idea).

BB