WorldCom Inc. (www.worldcom.com) is trying to make e-business a little easier. The company yesterday unveiled a slew of new managed web hosting packages that will enable businesses to develop or expand their web presence in a matter of weeks.
“We’re trying to demystify the purchasing process,” Ron McMurtrie, vice president of e-services at WorldCom, told XCHANGE. Until now, he notes, every web hosting sale was done on a customized basis, making it a time-consuming process in which it was hard for customers to compare services between providers and understand exactly what they were getting.
But WorldCom is changing that. The company is offering 10 to 15 day guarantees for installation of its managed web-hosting offerings, which will help shorten a company’s ability to get their web sites and e-businesses up and running.
“We need to provide managed solutions in a productized manner,” McMurtrie says. “That will facilitate [customers’] decision-making and enable them to know what they’re purchasing from a reliability perspective.”
WorldCom’s offering consists of six different hosting packages that are available on any one of three platforms: Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Solaris. Each of the packages contains hardware, software, Internet connectivity, support and associated SLAs. Technical service and support levels range from a 24x7 help desk to a dedicated support team with a single point of contact. Costs of the packages range from $4,000 a month on the low end to over $80,000 a month for the more complex solutions.
The hosting packages include:
1. Single Server Package – dedicated web server with database capabilities, backed by a 10-day install guarantee.
2. Basic Commerce Site Package – separate function-specific servers, ideal for e-commerce sites, backed by a 10-day install guarantee.
3. Intermediate Commerce Site Package – two load-balanced Web servers, a dedicated data server and failover firewall, with a 15-day install guarantee.
4. Intermediate Application Site Package – function-specific servers and strong security, includes a dedicated server for customer applications and fully redundant web and firewall servers, supported by a 15-day install guarantee.
5. High Availability Commerce Site Package – for businesses with industrial-strength e-commerce needs, includes a high-availability, redundant solution with several function-specific servers, backed with a 15-day install guarantee.
6. High Availability Application Site Package – for e-business solutions that need maximum redundancy and performance, includes several function-specific and application servers, with a 15-day install guarantee.
Currently the web hosting packages are available in the U.S. McMurtrie says they will be available in Europe and Asia within the next two months.
