Darius and Thomas, can you please start by giving us some information about your backgrounds? Darius Antia: I have been the CTO of Netfirms for the last 10 years or so.
Thomas Savundra: I'm the president of NetFirms. I was here from day one in 1999, when we founded the company. My role has evolved as the company has grown, and I now focus more on driving marketing initiatives and growing the company.
Can you tell us a bit about Netfirms? Darius: We started running Linux back in 1999, and we switched to FreeBSD after about three years. About two years ago, we began to offer Windows-based hosting in addition to Linux-based hosting.
What do you see as some of the major platform differences between Windows and Linux? Darius: I have always believed that decision needs to be driven by what customers want. Some customers prefer one platform over another, so we need to offer customers the ability to choose Windows if that's what they want.
What are the cost differences between providing Linux-based and Windows-based hosting options? Darius: Of the bills we generally have to pay, bandwidth and electricity are among the most expensive. We need to make payroll for 80 people each year too. In comparison, the $50 we pay for a hoster license is insignificant.
Thomas: In terms of licensing for Microsoft Windows Server versus licensing for Linux, Windows is really cost effective. It comes down to revenue, and we have such a huge demand for Windows-based hosting that it is easy to absorb even the minor costs for Windows licenses.
Have you found that Windows is more expensive from a support perspective? Darius: Supporting Windows is not an expensive proposition at all. In fact, cost-wise, it is a rounding error. Keep in mind that there is a considerable amount of infrastructure that we are able to share and leverage.
From a partnering perspective, do you find value in being a Microsoft partner? Darius: Definitely. That is probably one of the main reasons, and perhaps the catalyst, that caused us to launch a Windows-based hosting plan. The great support we receive from Microsoft is a key reason we decided to offer Windows-based hosting. Two years ago, we had some good conversations with a few Microsoft employees who were very specific about what we needed to do to launch a Windows-based hosting business.
On the Linux side, you wouldn't have the same type of partnership opportunities available to help you get started that Microsoft does. You would need to do it yourself or find someone on your team who is already familiar with Linux. We feel that Microsoft has become a lot more involved with the hosting community.
What do you think about the fact that recent Netcraft surveys show that the number of IIS-based applications and Apache-based applications are almost equal? Darius: I think, to some extent, that it is simply driven by the fact that Windows-based hosting is more available than it used to be. Going back a few years, the smaller number of people offering Windows-based hosting was probably due to expense and a lack of expertise in the hosting community. Now that more people are offering it, especially the bigger players, I would think that it is almost inevitable that the lines would converge.
What are your feelings about scalability and hosting platform choice? Darius: Scalability is more than just your choice of platform or tools that are available. In my experience, underlying design decisions determine whether you are going to scale properly and whether your environment is going to be maintainable. I do not think there are fundamental flaws with either platform that prevent scalability.
Most scalability walls are hit due to poor design decisions. I wouldn't generally blame a platform for not being scalable or successful, but rather the people behind a hosting implementation.
What are some of the technical and business reasons for offering Windows-based hosting? Darius: Interestingly enough, the technical reasons and the business reasons for running the platform are one and the same. Customers have said, "I want Windows and I want to pay you to make it available for me."
Therefore, the business decision from our perspective is that we have to offer Windows. There is no real argument there. If our customers have done their own analysis and decide that Windows is the better platform for them, then we are certainly going to support that decision and offer Windows.
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