What are everyones thoughts on the stock FTR, there latest announcement is below:
FTR HOLDINGS LIMITED 2002-05-20 ASX-SIGNAL-G
HOMEX - Perth +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Australia's largest web hosting company, WebCentral, has sold more than $600,000 worth of (annualised) managed Microsoft SQL database services within three months of making the product available to customers and only a week after its official launch.
"The rapid take-up of WebCentrals fully managed SQL EASY product demonstrates that many large organisations are keen to outsource the database management requirements of their Website," said Lloyd Ernst, WebCentral Chief Executive Officer. "We've achieved these sales with little promotion and expect sales in excess of $5 million, over the next 12 months as we ramp up our marketing.'
Most sophiscated Web sites today are driven by a backend database, now WebCentral can provide complete management of both the front end web site and the backend database.
The first customers for WebCentral's database solution include airlines, government departments, financial institutions and major multinationals. The company believes that such organisations are attracted by the ability to reduce costs and administration requirements.
"The best way to think of SQL EASY is to imagine outsourcing your database administration, your server hardware maintenance contract and your 24 hour on-call technical staff in one simple, cost effective process," said Ernst.
With SQL EASY, WebCentral takes on responsibility for all aspects of the technical operation of a customer's Microsoft SQL database. This involves provisioning and maintaining hardware, monitoring server performance, database back up, all standard Database Administrator (DBA) functions and software licensing. More advanced DBA functions are available on a fee for service basis and WebCentral's separate Complex hosting division has solutions based on Microsoft, Oracle and IBM database solutions.
The cost of an SQL EASY dedicated server ranges from $1470 per month for a single server solution, and from $10,000 per month for multi-server clusters.
These fees are very competitive compared to the upfront software licensing and hardware costs corporates face even before they pay for database maintenance. A single processor license for Microsoft SQLServer 2000 Standard Edition, for instance, is $10,917, With WebCentral SQL EASY, customers pay only $424 per month per sewer processor in license fees.
WebCentral works with database customers from planning to implementation. Its database architects and experts have worked for organisations including Accenture, Fujitisu and Suncorp and deliver advice to customers how issues such as how to best structure database replications, build in redundancy and maximise performance.