AIT’s Approach

Web hosting has evolved and features that didn’t even exist a few years ago are now standard. One sector that has seen tremendous change is the dedicated market, which was primarily price-driven. It has now become a question of value, just like when a person is shopping for a truck. Do they want lightweight or heavy-duty? A utility vehicle or luxury? Is performance measured by economy or by power? Companies who get caught up in the price game run the risk of buying market share that actually costs them money.

Customers who want the cell phone that has games, makes fries, tap dances, and stores music will pay for that capability; customers who want nothing more than a portable phone will pay for that. The same applies to dedicated hosting, which is why AIT’s approach has been to offer a value-based proposition to customer demands:

How much can I get for how little?
I want ping, power, and pipe with self-management.
I need a reseller program with profit margins and a provider that understands I’m more than a customer.

For each question, value is a relative thing, and in each instance, there is an understood give and take between customer and provider:

The low-price leader usually offers a one-size-fits-all plan with limited support; curiously, the most price-conscious customer frequently exacts the heaviest support burden.
The discount dedicated server offers the win-win of cheap bandwidth and cheap hardware. These solutions are usually un-managed, but the customer who buys them typically needs little support anyway beyond global issues.
Resellers get industrial infrastructure at a discount rate, the provider assumes resellers understand hosting, and both sides understand that problems are shared.

This year, AIT has developed a series of options to reflect the variety of customers within the dedicated sector. There is a self-managed version with a focus on reliable “ping, power, and pipe"; a plan with the Ensim Pro software for automation and easy management of common hosting tasks; and, the I-MHIP Enterprise, a fully managed plan that provides "point and click" administrative control of a server, plus many free features that users can resell to their customers. It’s been part of a concerted effort to focus on value and the variety of plans has been augmented by a string of product and service releases to accompany them:

Development of a server firewall solution
Creation of a monitoring service for better resource management
Development of an anti-spam product
Integration of PayPal into MCart, AIT's e-commerce software.
A search engine placement offering in partnership with Kanoodle, providing customers with an instant $25 credit.
Integration of .NET and Cold Fusion hosting support into shared and dedicated offerings
The addition of the FreeBSD operating system

The entrepreneur is far more wide-ranging that may appear at first glance. Entrepreneurs may or may not be technology savvy; they operate businesses from home or in office settings; and, the range of their products and services is limitless. To the entrepreneur, AIT represents stability, industrial strength infrastructure and reliability, and the ability to answer support questions around the clock. Some entrepreneurs simply want a digital storefront while others aspire to participation in the growing phenomenon of e-commerce. AIT offers several affordable hosting options that cater to the expectations of the digital entrepreneur.

The web designer / developer is more easily defined. These professionals are typically corporate webmasters, independent graphic artists, software developers, or programmers. By necessity, the designers & developer is technically knowledgeable. As such, these individuals will require less customer support but will also expect more of a service provider in terms of plan flexibility, number of available features, ability to support multiple development platforms and scripting languages, etc. As the D&D community is already involved in site design and creation, or client software development, or IT consultation, there is a seamless fit between those skills and the hosting platform AIT provides for them to resell.

AIT’s plans are backed by 24/7 live support through toll-free phone lines and an electronic ticket system. AIT’s core value is customer service, and new plans and features have been augmented by improvements in support:

Guaranteed Customer Service Response times with Premium Technical Support
Paid per-incident support for self managed solutions
Customized service level agreements

In addition, the data center and other components of AIT’s infrastructure are being significantly expanded to accommodate the customer growth of the past 12 months, and to allow for continued delivery of the promise of fast connectivity, maximum bandwidth, redundancy, fault tolerance, and load balancing. As is the case with most businesses, it is things most customers don’t see that are perhaps the most important. All the bells and whistles in the world won’t help your company grow if they don’t ring or blow when they’re supposed to.

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