Rackspace Technology, Inc. is an American cloud computing company based in San Antonio, Texas. It also has offices in Blacksburg, Virginia and Austin, Texas, as well as in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, India, Dubai, Switzerland, the Netherlands,[3] Germany, Singapore, Mexico and Hong Kong. Its data centers are located in[4] Amsterdam (Netherlands), Virginia (USA), Chicago (USA), Dallas (USA), London (UK), Frankfurt (Germany), Hong Kong (China), Kansas City (USA), New York City (USA), San Jose (USA), Shanghai (China), Queenstown (Singapore) and Sydney (Australia).
 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Cloud computing |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
Key people | Amar Maletira (CEO)[1] |
| Services | Cloud computing |
| Revenue |  US$2.957 billion (2023) |
| US$?899.4 million (2023) | |
| US$?848.9 million (2023) | |
| Total assets | US$|$4.096 billion (2023) |
| Total equity | US$|-154.5 million (2023) |
Number of employees | 5,800 (2023) |
| Website | rackspace |
| Footnotes / references [2] | |
History
edit1990s
editRackspace was founded in 1996 by Richard Yoo, Dirk Elmendorf and Patrick Condon. Two years later, Graham Weston and Morris Miller provided seed capital and began managing the company.[5] The company began after Yoo dropped out of Trinity University and launched Cymitar Technology Group out of a garage, through which the company sold internet access to his former classmates.[6] In 1998, the company was renamed Rackspace.[6] That year, Weston became CEO.[7]
2000s
edit
Lanham Napier entered the company in 2000 as its chief financial officer.[6] In 2006, Yoo left Rackspace[6] and Napier was named chief executive officer (CEO).[8] Weston stepped down as CEO and that year, he was named chairman.[9]
In 2008, Rackspace moved its headquarters to the then-unoccupied Windsor Park Mall in Windcrest, Texas. Rackspace's Chairman, Graham Weston, owned the Montgomery Ward building in the mall until 2006 when it was sold to a developer[10] In 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, Rackspace employees volunteered to refurbish the Montgomery Ward into a shelter for 1,300 people.[11]
The revitalization of the mall lead to development in the surrounding area, including the creation of Racker Road and the frontage road Fanatical Way, inspired by the company's trademark "Fanatical Support".[12] "Fanatical support" was the company's motto to describe its customer service. [13] This consisted of the disuse of voicemail, live customer support, and London-based customer service representatives always accessible, which at the time news reports attribute to giving Rackspace an "edge" in the web hosting industry.[14] Later, Rackspace’s Fanatical Support would be used to describe a service of providing customer representatives when businesses were implementing cloud hosting.[15]
In 2008 Rackspace opened for trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "RAX" after its initial public offering (IPO) in which it raised $187.5 million.[16] The initial public offering included 15,000,000 shares of its common stock at a price of $12.50 per share.[17] The IPO did not do well in the public market and lost about 20% of its initial price almost immediately.[18]
At around 3:45 PM CST December 18, 2009, Rackspace experienced an outage for customers using their Dallas–Fort Worth data center – including those of Rackspace Cloud.[19]
2010s
editIn 2010, Rackspace announced it would discontinue hosting the website for Dove World Outreach Center after pastor Terry Jones said he planned to burn the Qur'an on the anniversary of 9/11.[20] Jones called the move an "indirect attack on our freedom of speech." Business Insider also criticized Rackspace's decision.[21]
In 2014, Napier stepped down as CEO and Weston was named the interim CEO.[22] Taylor Rhodes was named president and later that year replaced Weston as CEO.[23]
In August 2016, it was confirmed that the American private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, had reached an agreement to buy the company for $4.3 billion.[24] The sale was completed in November 2016 and Rackspace officially ended trading on the New York Stock Exchange on November 3, 2016.[25]
In May 2017, CEO Taylor Rhodes announced he was leaving the company, and was replaced by Joe Eazor.[26][27] Eazor was replaced in 2019 by Kevin Jones.
2020s
editIn June 2020 it changed its name to Rackspace Technology.[28][29]
In August 2020 Rackspace Technology opened for trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "RXT" after its initial public offering (IPO). The Initial public offering of 33,500,000 shares of its common stock at an initial public offering price of $21.00 per share.[30]
In September 2022 the company named Amar Maletira as its new CEO.[31]
In December 2022 Rackspace suffered a major service outage which affected all their hosted Exchange users[32] (customers who bought email services from Rackspace that involved instances of Microsoft Exchange hosted on Rackspace's servers). After initial investigation Rackspace declared the incident a 'security incident' and said it had powered down its servers to protect customer data which some commentators speculated might be indicative of a ransomware incident, a theory that was lent further credence by Rackspace's decision to recommend that customers migrate to Microsoft 365 rather than wait to have their Exchange-based solutions restored. On Monday December 5, 2022, the first full day of trading after the incident (which started on the previous Friday), Rackspace's shares were down as much as 16% ($0.75).[33]
A class action lawsuit against Rackspace Technology, Inc. was filed on December 12, 2022, by Cole & Van Note for tens of thousands of businesses who lost access to their emails and services due to ransomware users. Stephenson, et al. v. Rackspace Technology, Inc.[34] This class action was dismissed by the judge in San Antonio in May, 2023. [35]
In January 2024, Rackspace moved its San Antonio Global Headquarters from Windcrest (The Castle) to the RidgeWood Plaza II office building, located in north-central San Antonio. [36]
Acquisitions
editOn September 13, 2007, Rackspace announced it has acquired email hosting provider Webmail.us, based in Blacksburg, Virginia.[37]
On October 22, 2008, Rackspace announced it was purchasing cloud storage provider Jungle Disk and VPS provider SliceHost.[38]
On February 16, 2012, Rackspace acquired SharePoint911, a Microsoft SharePoint consulting company based in Cincinnati, Ohio.[39]
On May 25, 2017, Rackspace announced an agreement to acquire TriCore Solutions.[40]
On September 11, 2017, Rackspace announced plans to acquire Datapipe.[41]
On September 17, 2018, Rackspace announced it had acquired RelationEdge.[42]
On November 4, 2019, Rackspace announced plans to acquire Onica.[43]
Other acquisitions include Cloudkick, Anso Labs, Mailgun,[44] ObjectRocket,[45] Exceptional Cloud Services, and ZeroVM.
On January 18, 2022, Rackspace announced it had acquired the Singapore-headquartered cloud-based data, analytics and AI company, Just Analytics.[46][47]
Involvement with other companies
editRackspace launched ServerBeach in San Antonio in January 2003 as a lower-cost alternative for dedicated servers designed for technology hobbyists who want flexibility and reliability. Richard Yoo was a catalyst in the startup of ServerBeach. A bandwidth and colocation provider, Peer 1 Hosting now known as Cogeco Peer 1, purchased ServerBeach in October 2004 for $7.5 Million.[48] Peer 1 Hosting entered the UK managed hosting market in January 2009 and the ServerBeach brand now competes directly with the UK arm of Rackspace, run by Dominic Monkhouse, former managing director of Rackspace Limited.[49]
In October 2006, Mosso Inc. was launched, which experimented with white-labeling hosting services.[50] Eventually, the division became the foundation for the Rackspace Cloud Computing offering.
On October 1, 2007, Rackspace acquired Webmail.us, a private e-mail hosting firm located in Blacksburg, VA. Originally branded as Mailtrust on May 20, 2009, it became part of the newly formed Cloud Office division of Rackspace.
On October 22, 2008, Rackspace acquired Slicehost, a provider of virtual servers[51] and Jungle Disk, a provider of online backup software and services.[52]
Rackspace announced on March 8, 2017, plans for an expansion to its portfolio to include managed service for the Google Cloud Platform.[53] The program began beta testing on July 18, 2017, with a planned full offering in late 2017.[54] Rackspace partnered with Google in Customer Reliability Engineering, a group of Google Site Reliability Engineers, to ensure cloud applications "run with the same speed and reliability as some of Google's most widely-used products".[54]
OpenStack
editIn 2010, Rackspace contributed the source code of its Cloud Files product to the OpenStack project under the Apache License to become the OpenStack Object Storage component.[55][56]
In April 2012, Rackspace announced it would implement OpenStack Compute as the underlying technology for their Cloud Servers product. This change introduced a new control panel as well as add-on cloud services offering databases, server monitoring, block storage, and virtual networking.[57] In 2015, two Rackspace executives were elected to the board of the OpenStack Foundation.[58] In a February 2016 interview, CTO John Engates stated that Rackspace uses OpenStack to power their public and private cloud.[59]
Recognition
editFortune's "Top 100 Best Companies to Work For 2008" placed Rackspace as No.?32.[60] In 2011 and 2013, the company was named as one of the top 100 places to work by Fortune.[61][62]
References
edit- ^ "Amar Maletira Named Chief Executive Officer".
- ^ "Rackspace Technology, Inc. 2021 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. March 1, 2022.
- ^ "rackspace.com – About Us". Archived from the original on August 18, 2007. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
- ^ "Rackspace Data Center Locations". Rackspace.
- ^ Takahashi, Dean (April 28, 2008). "Web-hosting service Rackspace files for IPO". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 19, 2024.
- ^ a b c d Killelea, Eric. "'The end': Rackspace founder says it's 'on trajectory of death.' Other former Rackers not so sure". San Antonio Express News. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved October 29, 2024.
- ^ "Graham Weston profile". Forbes. Retrieved November 15, 2024.
- ^ Hicks, Nolan (February 10, 2014). "Rackspace CEO steps down". San Antonio Express News. Archived from the original on July 2, 2024. Retrieved September 19, 2024.
- ^ "Graham Weston profile". Forbes. Retrieved November 15, 2024.
- ^ "San Antonio approves boundary change for Rackspace". Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
- ^ Martin, Justin (November 1, 2005). "Business Owners Pitch In". Fortune Small Business Magazine. Retrieved October 29, 2024.
- ^ Goddard, Dan (March 21, 2013). "Storming The Castle: Inside Rackspace Headquarters". San Antonio Business Journal. Archived from the original on January 10, 2014. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
- ^ Overholt, Alison. "Cuckoo for Customers". Fast Company. Archived from the original on October 12, 2012. Retrieved October 31, 2024.
- ^ Lorek, L.A. (June 3, 2004). "Rack and reign; Web host Rackspace makes a simple promise to clients: You will get fanatical support". San Antonio Express-News.
Rackspace banned voice mail from its phones. The company provides live customer support around the clock by phone and on its Web site. When it's 2 a.m., a person in its London office answers the phone or Web inquiries. Providing responsive customer service has helped give Rackspace an edge in the highly competitive Web hosting industry.
- ^ Mosbrucker, Kristen (July 12, 2017). "Rackspace's support for Microsoft's new privately chartered cloud could poach business clients — or give it bigger wings". San Antonio Business Journal. Archived from the original on October 31, 2024. Retrieved October 31, 2024.
- ^ "Rackspace IPO needed to cope with fast growth". Networkworld.com. August 8, 2008. Archived from the original on June 3, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
- ^ "Initial Public Offering – Press Release". Archived from the original on March 1, 2009. Retrieved August 12, 2008.
- ^ "Rackspace IPO tanks". Archived from the original on April 30, 2009. Retrieved August 26, 2008.
- ^ "Rackspace Goes Down. Again. Takes The Internet With It. Again". December 18, 2009. Retrieved December 18, 2009.
- ^ "Host company pulls plug on Florida pastor's website". Reuters. Retrieved October 29, 2024.
- ^ Saint, Nick (September 9, 2010). "San Francisco Chronicle". Archived from the original on December 6, 2010.
- ^ Hicks, Nolan (February 10, 2014). "Rackspace CEO steps down". San Antonio Express News. Archived from the original on July 2, 2024. Retrieved September 19, 2024.
- ^ "Rackspace CEO Rhodes resigns 6 months after sale". San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
- ^ Medhora, Narottam (August 26, 2016). "Apollo Global to buy Rackspace Hosting in $4.3 billion deal". Reuters. Archived from the original on August 26, 2016. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
- ^ Brezosky, Lynn (November 3, 2016). "It's official: Rackspace exiting New York Stock Exchange". Retrieved November 3, 2016.
- ^ "Rackspace CEO Rhodes resigns 6 months after sale". San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
- ^ at 03:01, Simon Sharwood May 25, 2017. "Rackspace demotes a CEO to hire a CEO to replace CEO who quit". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved May 1, 2019.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Rackspace changes name in preparation for public markets". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
- ^ Tsidulko, Joseph (June 9, 2020). "Rebranded Rackspace Ready To Conquer Multi-Cloud". CRN. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
- ^ "Rackspace Technology Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering". Nasdaq (Press release). August 4, 2020. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
- ^ "Amar Maletira Named Chief Executive Officer". www.rackspace.com. Retrieved September 22, 2022.
- ^ "Rackspace email outage continues as migrations prove hard".
- ^ Iszler, By Madison (December 5, 2022). "Rackspace email service outage". San Antonio Express-News.
- ^ "Cole & Van Note Announces Filing of Rackspace Ransomware/Data Breach Class Action". Morningstar, Inc. December 6, 2022. Retrieved January 18, 2023.
- ^ "Judge Throws Out Ransomware Class-Action Suit Against Rackspace -". ChannelE2E. May 22, 2023. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
- ^ Biediger, Shari (September 29, 2023). "Windcrest deal could turn Rackspace HQ into industrial complex". San Antonio Report. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
- ^ Macmanus, Richard (October 2007). "Rackspace Acquires JungleDisk, Slicehost To Take On Amazon Services". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved October 1, 2007.
- ^ Kincaid, Jason (October 22, 2008). "Webmail.us Acquired by Rackspace – Subscription Model Does Work". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
- ^ Gage, Deborah (February 16, 2012). "Rackspace Buys Up SharePoint911 To Gird For Cloud Fight". Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "Rackspace Announces Agreement to Acquire TriCore Solutions". Rackspace.
- ^ "Rackspace Announces Agreement to Acquire Datapipe". Rackspace. Archived from the original on November 26, 2018. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
- ^ "Rackspace Acquires RelationEdge to Broaden Application Services". Rackspace. Archived from the original on April 15, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2019.
- ^ "Rackspace to Acquire Onica a Cloud Native Consulting and Managed Services Company" (Press release). GlobeNewsWire. November 4, 2019.
- ^ "Rackspace to Improve Cloud-Based Email Services by Acquiring Mailgun Inc". Archived from the original on June 20, 2021. Retrieved April 15, 2013.
- ^ "ObjectRocket Acquired by Rackspace". Archived from the original on June 20, 2021. Retrieved April 15, 2013.
- ^ "Rackspace fortifies APAC footprint with new acquisition". IT PRO. January 19, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
- ^ "Rackspace Technology, Inc. | Rackspace Technology to Acquire Just Analytics, a Leading Provider of Cloud-based Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Services". ir.rackspace.com. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
- ^ "Peer 1 Buys ServerBeach for $7.5 Million". October 6, 2004. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
- ^ "Peer 1 & ServerBeach enter UK market with ex-Rackspace MD".
- ^ "Mosso Leverages Utility Computing to Provide Complete Hosting Solution for Web Professionals". Archived from the original on September 26, 2007. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
- ^ "Slicehost Acquired By Rackspace". Archived from the original on July 16, 2010. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
- ^ "Jungle Disk Acquired By Rackspace". Retrieved January 12, 2011.
- ^ Lardinois, Frederic (March 8, 2017). "Rackspace now offers managed services for Google's Cloud Platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
- ^ a b Lee, Patrick (July 18, 2017). "Announcing Managed Google Cloud Platform by Rackspace". Rackspace. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
- ^ Moorman, Lew (July 18, 2010). "Opening The Rackspace Cloud – The Official Rackspace Blog". Rackspace.com. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
- ^ "The Official Rackspace Blog". Rackspace.com. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
- ^ "The Rackspace Cloud Powered By OpenStack". Rackspace. Archived from the original on May 11, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
- ^ Mike W. Thomas, "OpenStack Foundation adds two Rackspace execs to board of directors" San Antonio Business Journal January 20, 2015
- ^ "Rackspace Focuses on Fanatical Support, Grows to 6,000+ Employees | HostAdvice". HostAdvice. February 8, 2016. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
- ^ "Fortune Magazine: 100 Best Companies to Work for 2008". CNN.
- ^ "Fortune Magazine". CNN.
- ^ "Best Companies to Work For 2013: Full List – Fortune". Money.cnn.com. January 17, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2013.