RackSpace

Rackspace is the world's leader in hosting. We deliver enterprise-level managed services to businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world. Serving more than 31,000 customers in eight data centers worldwide, Rackspace integrates the industry's best technologies and practices for each customer's specific need and delivers it as a service via the company's commitment to Fanatical Support^®. We serve as an extension of our customers' IT departments, enabling them to focus on their core business. We got started in 1998 and since then Rackspace has grown more than 50 percent a year. There are currently over 2,000 Rackers around the world serving our customers. In 1996, Richard Yoo started a small ISP out of his garage apartment called Cymitar Network Systems in San Antonio, Texas. Quickly, this company began to provide application development work, in addition to basic internet access and web hosting. In 1997, Yoo brought on Dirk Elmendorf and the company formally began to develop internet applications as its primary business and a new company was formed called Cymitar Technology Group. As Cymitar Technology Group grew, Patrick Condon was recruited from California and joined the team in 1998. Coincidentally, all three were students at one time at Trinity University in San Antonio. The pre-2008 Rackspace Logo Although they began as application developers for end-users, they found that most companies didn't know how to host their applications, or didn't want to be involved in the hosting. They wanted to keep their focus on the application development – not the hosting – but they were unable find an opportunity to outsource the hosting work. Eventually, the three men realized that it would be better to make a product out of the hosting need, and launch it as a company. Rackspace was created and launched in October 1998 with Richard Yoo as its CEO. The beginnings of Rackspace's Fanatical Support started once Rackspace realized that no company at the time could fulfill their unique requirements. Most companies focused on the technology end of hosting, but much less on service and support. [2] On March 28, 2000, Rackspace received funding through Sequoia Capital. [3] In January 2008, Rackspace went through a rebranding and changed from "Rackspace Managed Hosting" to simply "Rackspace". The company's tagline became "Experience Fanatical Support" rather than the older "Managed Servers Backed By Fanatical Support". The new logo and service marks keep the same colors as the original logo, but the overall design changed drastically.