Interviewed on 8 Sep 09
Dale Bunten, Director of Sales & Marketing
We are one of the oldest web hosting companies that is well known for being an innovator and a leader for the whole industry by continually staying “Ahead of the Rest”® - since 1996! We have been awarded more awards for Web Hosting Excellence over the last 14 years than any other hosting company. Recently, we were recognized for Dedicated Server Hosting Award, Managed Hosting Award, and Most Popular Backup Host Award for 2009. Both critically and customer acclaimed, with one of the industry’s strongest uptime records and customer satisfaction ratings, we have the track record, expertise and experience that many major businesses whose online presence is mission critical depend on.
Superb Internet is a financially reliable, stable company with zero debt. We own all of our data centers, thus our clients depend on us for their long term advanced hosting needs. In addition, we offer 100% network uptime that is one of the industries best track records, and our clients have come to rely on us their mission-critical infrastructure and applications.
At Superb, we work hard to ensure that our services are top notch, our technology is cutting edge, our network unbeatable, and our pricing fair and competitive.
Our headquarter is located in Honolulu, Hawaii and our data centres are located coast-to-coast in McLean, VA, Springfield, VA, and Seattle, WA, and all of them have fully redundant power, cooling, and networking to ensure that our clients` hosting infrastructure is always protected since we made significant investment in all 3 of our data centres.
What unique selling points do you offer?
For one thing, when you become a Superb Internet customer, you have the privilege dealing with one company. We are the only hosting company to operate our own coast-to-coast IP backbone. Unlike others who depend on others to move their data, our customers’ data travels on our coast, coast-to-coast IP backbone, and exits 60%+ of the time of the destination network directly.
Our network is designed with the lowest overhead and most efficient routes possible, and always performs considerably better – with shorter routes and lower latency – than any other competitor’s network (which is not really their own in the first place).
Secondly, At Superb, we are customer focused, network driven, and service minded. We realize that without our customers, there is no “us”. As such, our founding principle is that “our success depends on our customers’ success.” We always make sure that our customers know Superb Internet is a hosting partner that they can grow with over the long term.
Describe the services you offer?
At Superb, we define web hosting as a customer-driven service and while other web hosting companies are more server/hardware focused, and we believe that it is the customers who define our web hosting services.
We see web hosting more than just a web address and an IP address. Our point of view on web hosting is that it is all the services that it encompasses, from easy to reach, friendly customer support to experienced and committed tech support that is available 24x7x365 to help the customers to deliver their online presence over the Internet.
We believe that web hosting is the ability to deliver worry free, innovative and often exceptional levels of customer service that goes beyond the norm of providing a server, software and connectivity.
We truly value customer support by going the extra mile for a customer and to help them get online without causing any headache. We also believe that it is the customers, not the web hosting industry that will define where web hosting is going, which is why Superb regularly conducts customer surveys and utilizes the results in developing new web hosting services.
Since 1996, we have noticed that the companies that succeed in the web hosting industry are the once that are willing to evolve. Web hosting is not just the domain of the “geeks” but has to be for anyone who needs to get online and starts to do business.
At Superb, we know that the people out there who make the decisions, about who to host with, are business people. They are knowledgeable about technology and believe that it should be easy to run their online presence, and we are constantly working to make their wish come true!
When it comes to our dedicated servers we assure that we are reliable and dependable to provide a dedicated hosting solution with the very best in network connectivity, and excellent customer support. One of our core values is to always “stay ahead of the rest” by rapidly launching the very latest in server technology months before competitors and at very competitive prices.
For customers that require a little more support and would like to outsource the day-to-day management of their servers, we have recently launched Managed Hosting Solutions. This service gives our clients the flexibility to focus on their business while we manage their servers. We have a dedicated team of certified engineers proactively manage our clients` infrastructure so they don`t have to worry about monitoring their servers, creating backups, or updating patches. We will consult with the client to determine their current and future needs, and then we architect a custom solution for various objectives whether it is disaster recovery, high availability, performance, or all of the above.
Large scale bandwidth and colocation services are also available under our HopOne.net brand. Few people realize that we offer full datacenter outsourcing services, for example for a client that needs a smaller sized fully self-contained datacenter with its’ own back up generators, UPS, and HVAC systems. We also can host large scale streaming events and make accessible to the world. In addition, we have IP transit solutions at exceedingly competitive rates.
Describe your target market?
As a full spectrum host that offers everything from domain registration to application hosting, our target market is anyone that requires a reliable web presence. Our sweet spot, in terms of our experience and knowledge, would be the SMBs, who have either a higher volume website, or application that can’t go down. This usually consists of customers of with multiple functional servers, firewall, and perhaps some load balancing. We also focus on the channel sales and have very large resellers that resell our dedicated solutions at deep discounts. These are usually specific to various industry verticals.
How is your company planning for the future?
Superb has an aggressive growth strategy in place. We are currently focusing developing our internal systems, management team, products and services, and infrastructure for what we believe will be explosive growth during 2010 and beyond.
One of the advantages of being in the business for this long is that we have learned how to better implement new technology and have learned how to more effectively deal with the rapid growth and change which has been the demise of many companies. We believe and have always believed that the best approach is managed growth, by taking this approach we have grown and expanded without interruption to our current client base. As we move forward, we will continue to “push the envelope” in terms of our level and scope of services offered.
We are also focusing heavily on research and development to not only provide our existing customers with the latest and greatest features, but also to expand into new technologies such as cloud computing and beyond.
What benefits can you offer your customers?
• Company owned data centres: Customers deal with a single entity directly, rather than with third parties that have the ability to shut of power or other vital services.
• Nationwide Coast to Coast IP backbone: Customers experience some of the lowest latency and ping times, while allowing them to grow into multiple locations for disaster recovery or other services.
• Financially Responsible, Debt Free: Have the peace of mind that you are with a strong, responsible company that unlike many others is ready to take on the most challenging economic curveball. We have weathered (even thrived) despite at least two major economic storms in our 14 year history.
• Religious devotion to customer support: We view our clients as partners, not just customers because we understand that our two fates are linked, without customers we have nothing. We treat our partners with respect, and will go the extra mile to help them succeed.
• 14 years in business: shows that we have the staying power to service our customers over the long term. We are not just some flight-by-night company that is going under venture-funded capital intensive growth for the sole sake of reselling it at a huge profit. Steady, stable growth, we are in it for the long-haul.
• Affordable Solutions for uncertain times: Superb is able to offer very competitive rates because we have reached the necessary economies of scale to do so. Beware of companies offering the world for almost nothing to grab a piece of market share. If it sounds too good to be true then it mostly like is. Superb offers generous –but realistic- plans on all levels, backed up by experienced and knowledgeable staff.
How do you support your customers?
There are several support options we offer to our clients. One of the options is 24x7x365 live friendly technicians and server administrator’s support to ensure that our clients get the very best web hosting customer care. Our live tech support is with experienced systems and network engineers who proactively monitor our network.
Support Wiki is another support option that we have. It has extensive documentation on the most common questions for Web Hosting and Dedicated Servers that should help the customers to find what they need, of use the search box in the navigation menu on the left. Our customers can request an article, add and edit articles, and best of all, the answers are free!
Another support option we have for our customers is the MyCP® Ticket System. While we do provide 24x7x365 phone support, all hands on technical support is done via our myCP Ticket System. In order to accelerate our ability to fulfil our clients` support request, we recommend them that it is best to first submit a support ticket.
Now, we offer a comprehensive managed solution through Superb Managed Hosting. We assure our customers a dedicated team of certified engineers that proactively manages the clients’ infrastructure so they no longer have to worry about monitoring their servers, creating backups, or updating patches. Simply, we take care of all the work for them.
