aaa

Sales: 0800 840 7490 | +44 (0) 2380 111 640

Contact us

Support: 0800 840 7499 | +44 (0) 2380 111 644

Skip to main content
Blog

PEER 1 UK launches smart-phone app hosting service

2010-02-23

Mobile network peering and dedicated team optimises results

Southampton, UK, 23 February 2010: PEER 1 Hosting the global online business hosting provider has today announced the launch of a dedicated smart-phone app hosting service, taking advantage of its peering relationships with mobile network operators. The company, which provides dedicated hosting solutions through ServerBeach, has assigned a specialist “Host My App” team tasked with supporting fast growth innovators who are developing smart-phone apps, to enable the potential explosion in popularity that successful apps attract.

In addition to peering with mobile operators, including Vodafone and O2, which ensures that apps are downloaded quickly to end users and operate at optimum speeds, the Host My App team offers flexible and scalable month-to-month contracts. These elements, coupled with the ability to offer robust hosted test development environments, have been packaged to create a bespoke hosting solution specifically to meet the needs of smart-phone app developers.

PEER 1 Hosting already supports a number of successful smart-phone apps including Red Laser from Occipital and Urban Spoon. The company, which recently provided 150 servers in 48 hours for EA Games whilst on a month-to-month contract, has shaped its offering as a result of working with these brands.

Geri Searson, Head of Host My App at PEER 1 Hosting said: “Choosing the right hosting partner is a vital component in the success in smart phone app development. The peer reviews can make or break an app and performance plays a key part in the customer experience. We recognise that a small percentage of apps launched get into the top ten, so it is vital that contracts are flexible and primed for success, without costing the earth.”

Jeffrey Powers, Co-Founder of Occipital, the company behind No.1 barcode scanner app, RedLaser said: “Choosing the right hosting partner has been a critical part of our success. RedLaser has over one million users and has been among the top 20 paid iPhone apps for six months, three months of which was spent in the top 5. The ServerBeach team has been highly responsive and their technology offerings have allowed us to scale to match the growing demand, all while giving us the granular control we need to optimise our search API.”

PEER 1 Hosting’s UK Host My App team can be contacted on
 hostmyapp@peer1.com and via the telephone line 0800 840 7490

PEER 1 Hosting currently has over 500 customers in EMEA and revenue in excess of £3 million making it one of Europe’s largest IT hosting providers. The company offers managed hosting through PEER 1 Hosting and dedicated hosting through, ServerBeach, which is billed as ‘by geeks, for geeks’.

About PEER 1 Hosting

PEER 1 Hosting believes in the limitless opportunity of the Internet, and the business growth potential it provides for its more than 10,000 customers. As a global online business hosting provider, PEER 1 Hosting offers a reliable high performance Internet network supporting scalable Managed Hosting, Dedicated Hosting through the ServerBeach brand, and Colocation solutions. Backed by its 100 percent uptime guarantee and 24x7x365 FirstCall Support™, PEER 1 Hosting ensures customers’ online presence is always fast, always available. Since 1999, PEER 1 Hosting has grown to include 16 state-of-the-art data centres and points-of-presence throughout North America and Europe. The company’s headquarters are in Vancouver, Canada, with European operations headquartered in Southampton, UK.  PEER 1 Hosting shares are traded on the TSX under the symbol PIX.
For more information visit: www.peer1.com or www.peer1hosting.co.uk.

For European media inquiries please contact Champion Communications
Tel: +44 20 7268 3076,
Email: peer1@championcomms.com

10 questions to ask before going into business with a hosting provider

2010-01-18

A certain fact about managed hosting is that there are a lot of myths and misunderstandings that make finding the right provider very difficult.  How do you find your perfect partner in a cast of thousands? How do you know you’re getting good service and value for money? And what should you do if you suspect you’re not?

Here are the key questions you need to ask:

  1. Am I only paying for exactly what I need?
  2. Does your annual turnover make me feel confident?
  3. Check the service level agreement (SLA) and be sure it’s worth the paper it’s written on.
  4. Does the SLA get actively reported to me?
  5. Can I have a trial-run with the customer portal before I buy? This is where you can monitor uptime.
  6. Is the provider a technology or service business? Only go with a service business.
  7. Have they won any awards?
  8. Do they offer a range of Linux and Windows?
  9. Do you have to pay for support, even if you don’t want it?
  10. Check contract flexibility and consider a month-to-month arrangement.

PEER 1 Pays New UK Employees to Leave

2010-01-18

 

DominikToday we announced our venture into the UK, with new headquarters in Southampton to support our European expansion. We’ve also launched a new recruiting drive to find “Sales Supremos, Technical Gods, Data Center Managers and a Network Guru”, and we’re damn serious about it. So much so, we’ll pay you to leave. We’re offering to pay all successful new employees £1,000 (approx. $1,400 US) if they want to give up their jobs in the first two weeks.We want to ensure we only employ those who are fully committed to delivering outstanding customer service.

Employees will enjoy benefits including ‘Dress Up Smart Day’ once a month and ‘Free Food Day’ the day before payday. We’ll also run ‘Cock-up of the Month’ (love the British slang), an opportunity to learn from and celebrate mistakes, as well as having PlayStations in the office and ‘Beer O’Clock’ at 4pm on Friday to let off steam. This is how my new British counterpart, Dominic Monkhouse, puts it:

“If you are the most driven, ambitious, enthused, charming and downright brilliant candidate out there, we’ll give you a great job in a cool office, pay you a good salary, and give you endless self-development opportunities. We get IT at PEER 1. PEER 1 is the Number One web hosting provider in Canada and we’re now on a mission to be Number One in the UK. We’re hell-bent on being the best B2B services company in any sector. For that reason I am offering any new employee £1000 cash to leave in the first two weeks. This way only those employees who really get it, who are thoroughly and wholeheartedly committed to raising the standards in hosting and service to the highest level will stay.”

You can listen to Dom talk about PEER 1’s new recruiting efforts in this hilarious interview with Radio Hampshire. Nice work, Dom.

If you are in the UK, near the UK, or want to move to the UK and know you’ve got what it takes, email your resume/cv to hiremenow@peer1.com

Business Week’s take on cloud computing

2009-11-03

The recent PEER 1 research is used to highlight how confused business are about cloud in Karen Klein’s piece ‘The pros and cons of cloud computing’.

The full article can be read here: BusinessWeek – Pros and cons

PEER 1 cloud research highlights confusion

2009-10-26

PEER 1 research into cloud computing has thrown up some interested findings – not least the fact that businesses are still confused about what exactly cloud is and whether their business should be using the technology. Some of the key pull-outs:

  • 88% of IT decision makers do not use cloud technologies
  • 39% of respondents claim that lack of knowledge is putting them off
  • 24% of would-be cloud users are put off by security concerns

A write-up of the research can be seen here

Dom Monkhouse discusses cloud with Computer Weekly

2009-10-12

Dom Monkhouse was interviewed recently by Steve Gold, Computer Weekly’s cloud expert.

As part of a feature on cloud storage, Dom shares his views on the pros and cons of cloud. The article also discusses PEER 1’s CloudXcelerator Program which was launched earlier this year in the UK and US.

See the full article here

Aim for customer delight not customer satisfaction

2009-09-29

The Institute of Customer Service in the UK has this week introduced a ‘ServiceMark’ accreditation for companies to show their commitment to getting customer service right.

Firstly, hats off to any firm for going through the audit process. It means they want to improve and are seeking to benchmark their performance – THIS IS A KEY STEP!

But, there is a but. If the objective is to deliver customer satisfaction, then companies are wasting their time – setting a goal for mediocre service, usually means you’ll achieve it, if you are a local garage or a global bank.

Take a look at the online debate on the BNET blog and add some fuel to the debate – post a comment and let us know your thoughts. 

Here we are in 2009 and ten-years since it first re-wrote the rulebook, Amazon is still a guiding light on how to deliver online customer service. Others still can’t see the light or can’t find the will to follow.

Staff Celebrate Anniversary With PEER 1 Tattoos

2009-09-19

PEER 1 10 Year Anniversary Tattoo’s from Charnell Pugsley on Vimeo .

It’s been 10 years since we first opened the doors to our first data centre in Vancouver, Canada. Today our 360-strong staff in 12 cities around the world, including London, are partying to celebrate the anniversary. Three of our peers in San Antonio, Texas took the festivities a step further by visiting a local shop to get

PEER 1 tattoos!

Check them out in the video.

Dom Monkhouse ‘Makes a Difference’ through business culture

2009-09-14

Dom Monkhouse is interviewed by PersonnelToday.com to describe how fostering a strong culture of volunteer action and accountability is vital for a successful business.

From school under-achievers to the Little Black-Book and £1,000 exit bonus, Dom lays out his approach at PEER 1 UK for hiring the best service teams around!

See the full article here.

Leading the Charge with Remarkable Customer Service

2009-09-10

Our main guy here in the UK, Dominic Monkhouse, gave an interview to Growing Business and shares his insight on using a customer service-led approach to winning the battle for web hosting supremacy. Here’s an excerpt:

What many don’t understand is that every instance of human interaction is a moment of truth for a business. It was a lesson Monkhouse first learned in his second job as assistant manager at Marks & Spencer.

“It wasn’t uncommon for men to come in and buy a suit on a Friday, cut all the tags off, wear it to a wedding and then bring it back on Monday claiming it didn’t fit,” Monkhouse says, recalling one incident where the item was so creased it couldn’t be resold. Much to his surprise, his manager agreed to take it back, insisting that it was all part of owning and building the store’s reputation.

Monkhouse is fostering a similar culture, and believes it’s futile to get into a war over who’s to blame. “We’re in the IT game,” he says. “Things do go wrong and customers break their own stuff all the time. Then, if they ring us and say: ‘It’s broken,’ we’ll assume responsibility. In fact, we’ll say it’s our fault, so we’ll also take accountability, because without owning the problem, we can’t fix it. We won’t say: ‘Actually, we’ve looked in the log file and we think you logged in and broke it.’”

Read full article

 

Got a question?Call Sales 0800 840 7490 Get a quote Chat now