[ic] Looking for a list of hosts....

[Mike Heins]

Quoting Dan Browning (danpb@mail.com):
> > "Jillian Carroll" <jillian@koskie.com> writes:
> > 
> > > Is there a list anywhere of potential hosts he could check out?
> > 
> > There used to be such a list back in the minivend 3 days.  
> > That list is either gone or hopelessly out of date.  I 
> > volunteered to maintain such a list again; however, I only 
> > had like 3 submissions.
> > 
> > Anyway, since RedHat's in the hosting business themselves I 
> > doubt they would be open to sponsoring an "official" list 
> > anywhere on the Official Interchange site.  This is one of 
> > those times when a recognized community run site would be handy.
> > -- 
> >  (__) Doug Alcorn (mailto:doug@lathi.net 
> 
> I disagree.  I would be surprised if that really was the reason
> ic.redhat.com doesn't maintain an official list.  If they did have a
> list of "competitors", it would be an opportunity to show why official
> Red Hat hosting (& partnered Rackspace.com hosting) is "head and
> shoulders" above the rest.  That way people could clearly see "oh, the
> inexpensive ones are over here, but the good ones are over there".
> 
> I mean, there are people here on the 9.95/mo and cable modem hosting,
> which is fine when it's a one-man-show type store.  But for bigger
> businesses, Red Hat and other business (*ahem* *ahem*) use
> Enterprise-class hosting, which is Tier-1 co-located or dedicated boxen.
> 

I was the one who maintained the old list, and I had an active hosting
business at the same time I advertised my competitors. 8-)

I made a decision early-on that I would not compete for the business
where people were interested in the fewest dollars per month. My
forte was not volume hosting, it was Minivend expertise. So I could
(and had to) charge more, ofttimes for what seemed to be less. In
actual practice, I guess my service was pretty good because I never
lost a customer who actually used Minivend. (A couple faded away for
other reasons.)

So the list was partly to have a place to send people who wanted to try
and negotiate price. I would refuse to, but say "try some of these
people". I also had a policy that I would not list someone unless I saw
at least the demo Minivend store installed (and staying active) in their
netblocks.

Many times I became the refuge of last resort when people got tired of
getting what they paid for with free technical support. I charged through
the nose, but was almost always able to solve the problem. 8-)

[snip]

> What I mean to say is that I don't think Red Hat would hurt from putting
> such a list up, because it is like comparing Apples to Oranges.  There
> are different needs for different markets.  On the other side of the
> same coin, I am not opposed to a community site, since I don't think it
> will hurt things at all (plus, it may allay some of the conspiracy
> theories).  
> 

I suspect we would have no problem with such a list. The lack is in the
time to produce and maintain it. But if someone wants to start a project
in the new project home, that project being the hosting list, I am as
sure as I can be that it would be OK. Of course if the person starting
it was a hosting provider, they would have to be sure to no more prominently
feature themselves than their competition. 8-) I always had the smallest
icon for my own service, with no indication that it was the "official" one.

I would recommend that it not be all comers, that there be some verification
that an active Interchange catalog be available for inspection. 

-- 
Red Hat, Inc., 3005 Nichols Rd., Hamilton, OH  45013
phone +1.513.523.7621      <mheins@redhat.com>

Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on
society.  -- Mark Twain