Rackspace

Founded in 1998, Rackspace has emerged as a market leader in cloud hosting with revenue of $800m. In the public cloud, which accounts for about 15% of their current business, Rackspace are second only to AWS. The thing that differentiates Rackspace is that they don't consider themselves a technology company, but rather a service company providing technological solutions, primarily through dedicated hosting in the private cloud. With 120,000 customers worldwide, and operating out of data centres in the US, UK and HK, Rackspace is one of the most important cloud providers on the planet.

Asian operations are currently the smallest area of the business, and hence is the region where Rackspace wants to drive a big portion of future growth, beginning with the introduction of public cloud services to HK early next year. The model for Asian growth is what they achieved in the UK, which began operating on a small scale but has grown to account for over 25% of Rackspace's revenue, and they are really looking to become the market leader in Asia Pacific.

Rackspace's business is 100% cloud based, a unique feature. Their private cloud services – accounting for 85% revenue – is growing 20% year on year, and the public cloud is growing over 100%. Despite the growth of the public cloud, they still consider dedicated private hosting as a growth engine. They are also keen to be at the front of the move to hybrid cloud services, something they believe will persuade even more enterprises to move to the cloud.

As for the Asia Cloud, Rackspace joined for two reasons. Firstly, it will boost their profile. Secondly, and more importantly, however, is their belief that cloud technology is the next big thing, and for the cloud to hit its potential there has to be standards and talk about legislation, as well as consideration of other challenges such as data privacy and security, which is best done in a consortium rather than between individual units. If restrictions are put on the industry then its value will be diluted, and so the Asia Cloud is a valuable way to educate governments and legislators, giving them the knowledge necessary to make the best decisions.

"The association benefits all involved, setting the standard for the future that will help the industry grow. Without doubt, the Asia Cloud will raise the profile of cloud computing in Asia."