The Planet Blog

It’s been a whirlwind of a month already. We released several new server promotions, launched Alpha Professional “managed dedicated” services for private and virtual racks, had company-wide kickoff meetings in Houston and Dallas, and to top it all off, we pushed out a brand new Web site.

Just writing down the rundown of the first 23 days at The Planet this year makes me yearn for a George Costanza-inspirednap-friendly desk. A few weeks ago, I could have caught some shut-eye in my “seasonal office,” but now that my area is unwrapped, I’ll just power through this blog post … full pot of coffee in tow.

Avid blog readers will have already seen and loved Steve’s post about the new Web site, so I’m going to ride his coattails and focus on the message we built our site around: “The Power to Choose.”

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’ll try to boil it down to a few: The Planet offers an unrivaled hosting product and service continuum. If you are in the market for any flavor of hosting, you can find it at The Planet. In that service spectrum, you see our primary lines of business: colocation, dedicated servers, managed services (monitoring, security, backup, migration) and fully managed hosting. With that foundation, we are able to incorporate new products and services like our Content Delivery Network and Storage Cloud offerings.

Now for a fun little interactive game: Click on the above image to get to our Hosting Solutions page where you can go through our “Which hosting solution is right for you?” wizard … Don’t worry, I’ll be here when you get back …

See. I told you I’d still be here. If you’re in the market for a specific kind of hosting, the wizard probably told you exactly what you already knew … unless you just clicked through it with a few “what if” answers to see what our super-secret, proprietary and complex artificial intelligence would suggest for you. Maybe that was just me.

The power to choose is central to our hosting message, so if you can think of anything we should add or change to include in that message, let us know!

-Kevin

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about our continuum of products and services, head to our Hosting Services page to get a detailed comparison of our colocation, dedicated servers, managed dedicated servers and managed hosting offerings.

Drum roll, please … it’s a momentous day for The Planet!

This morning we’ve launched an awesome new Web site that will make it far easier for you – our customer – to learn about and purchase The Planet’s products and services. We’ve made the site easier to navigate, backed by a wealth of new features for visitors who aren’t certain which services are best for their business.

Prominently featured is our messaging based on “The Power to Choose.” We offer the broadest range of options in the industry. Whether you’re looking for dedicated servers, management services, fully managed hosting or colocation, you’ll find a solution that meets your needs.

You may have noticed advertising from The Planet on many new properties, as well as a new campaign that has The Planet ads showing up many places you have never seen us before, based on your having visited our site in the past … and this is just the beginning.

Go ahead and take a test drive through the new site and let us know what you think!

-Steve

You’re wrapping up a successful trip to the electronics store: You escaped the television section without submitting to the “need” for a 76″ LCD with no interest financing until 2144, you convinced yourself that if you bought Rock Band 2, you would officially be dead to the outside world for at least 2 weeks, and you made sure to stay away from the computer peripheral aisle after you reminded yourself that it took seven months to pay off the credit card debt amassed the last time you walked through to “browse.” You’re a pillar of self control as you wait in line to check out with an 8-pack of Double-A batteries and the two-disc special edition Iron Man DVD.

Then it happens.

A flash of red immediately draws your eye away from the queue of four customers in front of you. Instinctively, your head turns to see your nemesis … the bargain bin. Relatively unassuming in stature, the chaotically-piled merchandise strikes a deep chord in your soul. You know the checkout line isn’t going anywhere, so you nonchalantly meander over to the bin. All 8 seasons of Full House on 40 convenient VHS tapes, Richard Simmons: 80’s Blast Off on limited-edition DVD, a keyboard with Russian characters, a circa-1997 Giga Pet … could you get any luckier?!

Your sub-$30 mission may have hit your wallet a little harder than anticipated, and you’re not sure how long it’ll take to recover the pride you lost as you sheepishly dragged the entire bin into the checkout line, but you are victorious: When you compare the price you paid with the retail cost of all of your goods, you averaged an 86% savings!

While I can’t say that scenario was entirely fictitious, I can explain its significance to the world of hosting and hope no one questions me further about which aspects I’ve experienced personally.

Today, Planet Alpha announces our own Bargain Bin!

The Planet Alpha Bargain Bin is our new real-time searchable repository that features overstocked and clearance dedicated servers in a variety of configurations. The servers are available on a revolving basis, with prices starting at $45 per month.

Bargain Bin servers are selected from the Planet Alpha dedicated server fleet, and they continuously rotate based on availability, demand and data center space. When you visit the Bargain Bin, you can search for servers by processor and drive-controller type, hard disk space, memory capacity and price. The servers come with The Planet’s full range of software options, including operating system and control panel choices, though the server’s hardware must be purchased as it is configured and displayed. New servers are constantly added and others run out of stock. Think of it like Woot! for your server needs.

Bargain Bin servers are backed by The Planet’s Service Level Agreement, 24/7 support, and world-class network and data centers … the only distinction from our normal product catalog is that changes cannot be made to existing hardware for the life of the server.

The key purpose of the bargain bin is to provide you with super-affordable servers while extending the server life of hardware. The primary difference between changes cannot be made to existing hardware for the life of the server.

Buying from the Bargain Bin is a great way to add to your server portfolio at The Planet, and with the money you save, you’ll still be able to afford that pink silicone first-generation iPod case when you go back to the electronics store.

- Kevin