Interview with Superb.net

Basic Company Information

Superb Internet Corporation
14th floor - 700 West Pender St.
Vancouver, B.C. V6C 1G8 Canada
Phone: 1-604-638-2525
Fax: 1-604-608-2953
E-mail: Sales@SUPERB.NET
Contact: Curtis R. Curtis, VP Sales & Marketing

General Questions

Who is your targeted audience?

As we are one of the first and oldest hosting companies, we have historically targeted web masters and web developers, whether they work for or are consulting companies with online requirements. We also target resellers who are looking for managed services, both shared and dedicated - in fact we are the original reseller hosting company.
Finally, we look for those customers who are seeking a long-term hosting partner, not simply the cheapest in the marketplace - those customers for whom reliability, customer service and stability of their hosting company are more important requirements rather than who is the cheapest.
With the launch of our new hosting venues, www.superbservers.net and www.superbhosting.net, we are now targeting SMEs, game servers and home businesses/users.

Where do you see your company two years from now?

Superb Internet as it always has been; will continue to be a world leader in the hosting marketplace. In addition to our already broad array of hosting services, we will continue to expand our network infrastructure with new operations in the USA and Europe. We are also focusing more on the value-added side of the dedicated server market, especially the enterprise arena, with an expanded relationship with Microsoft and RedHat.

What significant changes have you seen in the web hosting marketplace over the last 12 months?

For the most part, the most significant change within the industry has come in automation. More and more hosting companies are moving towards technologies which help automate the process of setting up and managing hosting services. Additionally as hosting moves towards commodization, customer service has come to the forefront in terms of differentiating between hosting companies. Unfortunately with commodization, comes price cutting, making it difficult to maintain high standards in quality of service. Fortunately for us, we have always differentiated on service, so this is a plus not a negative.

How did you come to choose your company name?

When Haralds Jass started Superb Internet in 1996, he was frustrated with his current hosting company and needed someone who was "superior" to the status quo. With this mandate, he decided that having a company which was simply "Superb" merited the name Superb and since 1996, Superb Internet has been and will always be "Superb".

What advice do you have for someone who is just starting a hosting company?

Focus on your customers. Make customer service your first priority. Also be sure to host your servers in a data center which offers great connectivity, fully managed servers and 24x7 technical supports such as Superb Internet.

In the next five years, where do you see the web hosting industry taking us?

I see a lot of changes in store for both the industry and the marketplace. Over the next couple of years as hosting becomes more commoditized, we will see a continuing trend in companies trying to acquire customers no matter what the cost. Like the ISP industry, this is going to cause many of these companies to go under. Without a profit-based mandate, many hosting companies are going to find themselves financially overburdened and will be faced with either selling off or Chapter 11, as we saw with many ISPs in the mid 1990's.

How do you walk the fine line between growing to meet the anticipated needs of new customers and growing too quickly?

For us, this has never been an issue because we have always grown our services and facilities at a pace which has been dictated by our customers. We add new services and expand our data centers based upon a calculated balance between the needs of our existing customers and that of potential new ones. We do not seek to acquire new customers until we have rolled out the infrastructure and the necessary people to fulfill the anticipated growth.

You And The Competition

What are your company's three key success factors?

- Superior connectivity
- Award-winning customer support
- Depth of experience in the hosting industry

How has your company kept up with changing technology?

We have always been a leader in the changes brought about in the industry, often leading the way in new innovations such as the virtual private servers.

How are your services and pricing levels better than those of your competitors?

For us, connectivity and customer service is where we differentiate our hosting services. As for pricing, there will always be someone cheaper than us.

Please indicate any other attributes and/or benefits your company has to offer that you feel would be good reasons for clients to choose you over your competitors.

As noted above, our connectivity and customer service are the best reasons why to choose us. Also our length of time as a profit hosting company in an industry rife with failures, is another great reason to choose us.

Your Hosting Plans

What do your lower price point hosting solutions include and at what price?

We recently launched a new budget-minded hosting service which offers everything you need to get online, including a free domain, free website and extensive features such as 50GB/m traffic, 1 GB of disk space and 250 email accounts starting at $6.50/m. For those just wanting to get online with a website, we offer the Instant Site Creator for $1.50/m.

What do your higher price point hosting solutions include and at what price?

We offer an extensive array of advanced and complex dedicated hosting solutions which include custom-built servers complete with load-balancing, clustering and server farm arrays, which would be priced according to the specific requirements of the client, depending on their needs. We have existing clients paying in excess of $50,000/m

Which services and features do you offer as part of your hosting agreement at no cost (i.e., free domain name registration, real-audio video server, Web statistics software, etc.)?

The entire list features noted above are now included in our new hosting service, www.SuperbHosting.Net. We also include 8 free pages WebsiteCreator.

If you offer user control panels, for which platform(s)? Briefly describe their functionality.

In addition to our own privately developed myCP Control panel which comes with every hosting service, we offer CPanel & Ensim Webppliance for Linux and Hosting Controller & Ensim Webppliance for Windows.
For more on Ensim go to - http://www.ensim.com/products/pro/index.html
For more on CPanel go to - http://www.cpanel.net
For Hosting Controller go to - http://hostingcontroller.com/english/features.html
As for our myCP control panel, login to - http://mycp.superbhosting.net/demo.php

Connectivity & Data Center Specs

How is your data center connected to the Internet, and what level of redundant connection does your organization have?

Our state-of-the-art data centers in Washington, DC and McLean, Virginia feature power feeds from two separate, redundant power grids; if one power grid goes out, we still would not lose power. We also operate a high-capacity Liebert UPS system, augmented by a number of smaller per-rack UPSes. Both UPS sytems are able to power all the DCA1 servers for over 45 minutes in case of a power outage. Two 20-ton Liebert AC units are in use, too, maintaining a consistent temperature of 18C and a dust-free environment at our NOC. While we are on the subject of connectivity, it must be noted that Superb Internet owns & operates two of, if not the best-connected DCs in the hosting industry with over 100 direct network connections. For more on our superior network connectivity, check out: http://nsssc.superb.net/information/corenet-info.php

Support & Customer Service

List the types of support your organization offers (e-mail, telephone, chat, trouble tickets, etc...).

We offer 24x7 live support via myCP Online Support System, toll-free 1-888-354-6128 telephone support and of course, email and LiveChat.