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Cobweb Solutions: Brave in a new world World-class companies from across the region
Signs of a successful leader include cool-headed bravery and good decision-making; two things that managed hosting and cloud service provider Cobweb Solutions has demonstrated in its 16-year history
Confidence, commitment, and competence are also key to Cobweb’s continuing growth, which today sees it with an annual turnover exceeding £7 million, more than 6,000 business customers and proud to be Europe’s leading provider of Microsoft-hosted solutions.
In February, Cobweb passed the 10,000-user mark for its new Hosted Exchange 2010 platform, making it the fastest-selling version in the company’s history. Then, in March, Cobweb was chosen as ’Cloud Partner of the Year’ by Symantec before being acclaimed ’Best Hosted Exchange Service’ by CloudPro magazine.
Not bad progress for a business that took its name from the ’décor’ of its first home – a barn. Now, it has 70-staff and superb modern premises overlooking the landscaped Cams Hall Estate, near Fareham.
Cobweb showed bravery in its early days, when ’cloud’ for many was blue-sky thinking. Websites and Internet dial-up services were the norm, explains CTO and co-founder Julian Dyer (pictured). Cobweb had become an application service provider, and early adopter of Microsoft Exchange, but wanted more.
Cobweb saw the market potential of providing Internet-managed IT, messaging and collaboration services. “It was obvious to us 10 years ago that IT would eventually be hosted in the ’cloud’.
“Very few people in the world had attempted hosting Microsoft Exchange online as opposed to on-premise Exchange. The software was different. We launched our hosted service in 2003 with a technically modified onsite enterprise product. That was pretty unique.
“I’d been in computing for 20 years, so knew the technology drivers enabling hosting could only go one way – exponential,“ says Dyer.
Cobweb was also fortunate to gain funding before the dot-com bubble burst. “Every business needs some luck.“
Bravely, Cobweb has now sunk more than £6m into developing its cloud offering. “If the deal is right, and it will make a difference to our customers in a year rather than three, then we are strong believers in making an investment to maintain leading edge.“
Cobweb made a good decision to ride the breaking wave of ’cloud’ with reliable and strong partners, notably Microsoft.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – MAY 2012
Several other well-chosen OEM, vendor, reseller and specialist partners were drawn into Cobweb’s hosting platform – today very much a ’cobweb’ of interlinked providers with their expertise being channelled for the benefit of Cobweb’s end-user customers.
Another good early decision came with Cobweb’s choice of ’cloud’ technology platform partner. In 2007 Cobweb became an early client of
Parallels.com (formed in 1999), now a worldwide leader in hosting and cloud service enablement and desktop virtualisation.
“Parallels automation gives us a customer- facing management control panel and a billing system that can cope with active 24/7 change, and importantly the flexibility and scope for us to scale up our business.“ Cobweb is currently creating a platform for 500,000 mailboxes.
The recession didn’t help cloud development progress on software, products, services and marketing. Cobweb entered a period of slow organic growth, funded largely by its existing hosting business, while positioning itself to achieve its ’vision’ as the cloud commercial proposition improved. Cobweb had a premium priced cloud product, but in a small, niche market.
“The kick for Cobweb was realising that our rate of growth was below our expectations. We wanted 30%, but were achieving 10-20% growth. We were successful, but felt we were failing.“
When Microsoft entered the market itself in 2010 with its BPOS product priced at half the market norm, some might have looked for an
Leading Edge
exit. Cobweb bravely stood by its ’vision’ and matched Microsoft’s pricing; restructuring its company focus to become a more bespoke, consultative, solutions-driven operation.
Cobweb’s cloud offering became more about operational benefits, added-value ’Enterprise Ready’ services and cost-efficiencies for middle- market customers – the price factor waned. This has allowed Cobweb to scale and grow, converting existing hosted clients and gaining new cloud customers.
And the future of cloud? “We are still only in the first stages of this new wave, but cloud IT change is where substantial business benefits will start to materialise.“
Does Dyer think his company is leading edge? “Yes, definitely in cloud Exchange hosting. But, we’re also likely to become leading edge in unified communications.“
This is the latest article in a series looking at leading-edge companies that we have identified in association with business advisers BDO.
What makes Cobweb Solutions leading edge? – the view of BDO partner Paul Anthony
“
From its constant daily focus on customer satisfaction – exemplified by its 24/7 customer helpdesk – to its undoubted grasp of the potential of cloud, Cobweb is leading edge.
It is meeting the managed-hosting requirements of today’s business customers, but also thinking strategically about tomorrow’s commercial cloud opportunities – hosted desktops, federated platforms and pure-play unified communications.
Cobweb’s early adopter longevity has not only provided valuable experience and knowledge, but a grounded view of market trends and the future of the cloud’s disruptive technology.
Cobweb has proven ability, direction, drive and ambition. I sense that Cobweb sees the future approaching rapidly and plans to stay at the leading edge – as it is now – of a new world of user-friendly communication.
www.businessmag.co.uk
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