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Forbes Earnings Preview: Rackspace Hosting
By Narrative Science (see below for what this is)
Wall Street is optimistic about Rackspace Hosting (RAX), which is slated to report its fourth quarter results on Monday, February 13, 2012. Analysts project a profit of 15 cents a share, a rise from 10 cents per share a year ago.
What to Expect:
The consensus estimate has fallen over the past three months, from 16 cents. Analysts are projecting earnings of 53 cents per share for the fiscal year.
Revenue is projected to be $281.1 million for the quarter, 30.9% above the year-earlier total of $214.7 million. For the year, revenue is projected to come in at $1.02 billion.
Trends to Watch For:
Revenue has grown by double digits year-over-year for the last four quarters. Over that span, the company has averaged growth of 29.9%, with the biggest boost coming in the most recent quarter when revenue rose 32.5% from the year earlier quarter.
The company’s profit has been on the rise for three quarters in a row. In the third quarter, net income rose 69.2% while it rose 56.8% in the second quarter and 40.9% in the first quarter.
Analyst Ratings:
The majority of analysts (61.1%) rate Rackspace as a buy. This compares favorably to the analyst ratings of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 52.1% buys. Analysts have become more cautious about the stock in the last three months.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/narrativescience/2012/02/08/forbes-earnings-preview-rackspace-hosting-2/?partner=yahootix
----------------------
Narrative Science, an innovative technology company, turns data into stories. Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations. Multiple versions of the same story can be created to customize the content for each audience’s specific needs. Contact forbes@narrativescience.com
Earnings on Feb 13.
Wow, I'm afraid to say anything and jinx the move! Rumors out there?
Earnings are next week (I think).
Cloud computing company selects Suaad Sait as its first-ever CMO
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Rackspace-Names-Chief-bw-508560542.html?x=0
"..... Rackspace Hosting RAX +0.74% is another aggressive growth title followed in this space for some time. While its business of providing Internet hosting services to businesses may not sound glamorous in this wired world, its growth characteristics separate it from the rest of the growth pack.
RAX's quarterly earnings growth has been 17%, 40%, 33%, 50%, 43%, 43%, 63%, and 56% over the past eight periods, respectively, with revenue growth coming in at 18%, 23%, 23%, 23%, 27%, 29%, 32%, 32% over this same period. This increase in the speed of revenue growth over a period of several quarters is known as "accelerating revenue growth," and has often correlated with an increased stock price among growth issues. Mutual funds that own the stock have risen over the past seven quarters from 246 to 479. Long-term debt as a percent of equity is 16%, and the price-earnings ratio is a lofty 93 times trailing four quarters' earnings. Technically, the stock has been digesting a large '10-'11 advance in its price by building an eight-month, cup-with-handle base. The Nov. 8 high of 45.46 could be used by an aggressive speculator as a potential entry point, together with a reasonable 5%-7% stop-loss in case proven incorrect.
Ideally, however, entry in RAX should be postponed until the large investor shows more interest in participating in the nearly-three-month-old market advance.
In summation, while names like Alexion and Rackspace represent some of the very few aggressive growth titles that act well, the view here is that given the overall lethargy enveloping the general market, a high cash position is warranted. There will come a time that is better-suited to trafficking in some of the glamours such as ALXN and RAX.
But now is not that time.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hang-on-to-your-cash-2011-12-29?pagenumber=2
Tech Investors Look to Cloud
Fri 16 Dec 11 | 11:45 AM ET
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000062214#
:earnings to jump 50% in Q4
:cut costs by leasing data centers
:sales growth over 23% each of last 7 quarters
Playbook game plan for RAX on 12/13/2011
Here's our thoughts:
Open Cloud Visionaries: John Engates, CTO of Rackspace
12/06/2011 @ 9:35AM
"This article is based on an interview with John Engates, CTO of Rackspace, the managed hosting company that has differentiated its offering based on delivering the best possible customer experience, which the company delivers under the tag line “Fanatical Support.” Rackspace is also one of the founders of the OpenStack open source project, which has quickly become, along with Amazon Web Services and VMware, one of the leading ways cloud infrastructure is being created. Rackspace has also been an innovator in creating hybrid offerings, such as RackConnect, which allows applications that run on managed hosting in Rackspace data centers to work seamlessly with resources in the Rackspace Cloud.
In this interview, Engates does not pull any punches. He sets forth his vision for an open cloud and is aggressive in his opinions about competitors and alternatives. In subsequent articles in this series, other experts will get their say, which will no doubt lead to a lively discussion. We hope you enjoy this first installment."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2011/12/06/open-cloud-visionaries-john-engates-cto-of-rackspace/
•Coverage initiated on Rackspace by Collins Stewart
Briefing.com(Mon 6:57AM EST)
author Glenn Mattson says "Disclosure: I am short RAX."
gee, no kidding!
A Poor Business Model That's Severely Overvalued
http://seekingalpha.com/article/307964-rackspace-a-poor-business-model-that-s-severely-overvalued
Latest short interest for "Employer of the Year"
SettlementDate Short Interest Avg Daily Share Volume
10/31/2011 10,082,819 1,106,064
10/14/2011 10,742,386 1,740,165
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/rax/short-interest#ixzz1dJSgAJ4o
Rackspace Scoops 'Employer of the Year' at National Business Awards UK
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 11/10/11 -- Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE: RAX), the service leader in cloud computing, today announced that it has been recognised as the 'Employer of the Year' at the 2011 National Business Awards UK, which were held at London'sGrosvenor House Hotel on Tuesday 8th November 2011.
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/company-news-story.aspx?storyid=201111100530mrktwireuspr____0820227&title=rackspace-scoops-employer-of-the-year-at-national-business-awards-uk#ixzz1dJTrR9yH
Rackspace Hosting's CEO Discusses Q3 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
http://seekingalpha.com/article/306015-rackspace-hosting-s-ceo-discusses-q3-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo
"...Before I turn the call over to Karl to review our detailed financial results, let me summarize our results through September. In the first quarter, we set the bar high with a strong start to the year.
In the second quarter we achieved $1 billion annualized revenue, in the third quarter we began our journey towards the $2 billion revenue milestone, and we did it while growing rapidly the services that we expect to significantly improve the capital efficiency of our business model.
In the fourth quarter, we will be focused on delivering a strong ending to a great year...."
That's some healthy growth that's expected. Hope they 'beat' so price can head towards Goldman's $54 target.
Forbes on RAX
http://www.forbes.com/sites/narrativescience/2011/11/02/forbes-earnings-preview-rackspace-hosting/
Optimism surrounds Rackspace Hosting (RAX), as it gets ready to report its third quarter results on Monday, November 7, 2011. Analysts are expecting Rackspace to book a profit of 13 cents a share, up from 9 cents a year ago.
What to Expect:
Analysts are expecting earnings of 52 cents for the fiscal year per share.
Revenue is projected to eclipse the year-earlier total of $199.7 million by 31%, finishing at $261.6 million for the quarter. Revenue is expected to come in at $1.02 billion for the year.
Analyst Ratings:
Analysts are split on Rackspace, but eight of 16 analysts rate it hold. Analysts have become more cautious about the stock recently and the number of buy ratings has dropped slightly over the past three months.
Trends to Watch For:
Revenue has grown by double digits year over year for the last four quarters. Over that period, revenue has grown by an average of 27.6%. The biggest boost came in the most recent quarter when revenue increased 32% year over year.
The company has posted increasing profit for three quarters in a row. In the most recent quarter, net income rose by 56.8% from the year-earlier period. Net income rose 40.9% in the quarter before that, and 49.9% in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year.
Competitors:
Rackspace Hosting provides hosting and cloud computing services. One of Rackspace’s main competitors in the internet software and services industry is Akamai Technologies (AKAM). Other competitors in the information technology sector include: Equinix (EQIX), Computer Sciences (CSC), and Internap Network Services (INAP).
nice plug on cnbc just now
==
4kids
all jmo
RAX: "Goldman Sachs analyst Scott Goldman upped his rating to Buy from Hold. He raised his price target on the stock to $54, from $44; the stock closed yesterday at $37.52.
“We believe the Street is underestimating RAX’s revenue growth potential for 2012 amid soft economic indicators, a decelerating tech spending outlook, high SME [small and medium-sized business] exposure and increased competition,” he writes. “However, we view RAX as a near-term secular winner in the shift to cloud computing with the opportunity to maintain elevated growth.”He lifts his 2012 revenue growth forecast to 33.6%, from 25.2%, while boosting 2013 to 25.4%, to 20.5%.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/10/13/rackspace-goldman-ups-to-buy-sees-unappreciated-growth/?partner=yahootix
And, then yesterday there was this:
"A report from Benchmark states that it has downgraded Raskspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) to Hold from Buy and reduced the price target from $50 to $42.
In the report, Benchmark writes, “Rackspace is a high-growth, high multiple stock with heavy exposure to small and medium sized businesses. We believe it is the most vulnerable of the data center stocks to further stock price retrenchment. We maintain our estimates which reflect lower revenue growth than Street consensus but higher profitability”."
Source: http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/...
Rackspace Hosting to Host Investor Call with JMP Securities
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rackspace-hosting-to-host-investor-call-with-jmp-securities-2011-09-07
SAN ANTONIO, Sep 07, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Rackspace(R) Hosting, Inc. RAX +2.65% , announced that it will host an investor conference call on Thursday, September 8th at 9:00 am CT. Lew Moorman, president of Rackspace's Cloud Business and chief strategy officer, Jason Luce, vice president of finance and Pat Walravens, analyst from JMP Securities, will discuss cloud computing and additional Rackspace offerings.
A webcast of the conference call will be available on Rackspace's website, located at http://ir.rackspace.com .
About Rackspace Hosting
Rackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud platform. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support(R) to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company and was featured on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. The company was also positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the "2010 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting." For more information, visit www.rackspace.com .
SOURCE: Rackspace Hosting, Inc.
Rackspace Hosting, Inc.
Investor Relations:
Bryan McGrath, 210-312-5230
ir@rackspace.com
or
Media Relations:
Rachel Ferry, 210-312-3732
rachel.ferry@rackspace.com
Rackspace Hosting Will Challenge Amazon's Market Foothold
From SeekingAlpha
http://seekingalpha.com/article/288538-rackspace-hosting-will-challenge-amazon-s-market-foothold
Headlines.
•Rackspace 2Q results beat analyst expectationsAP(Thu 5:55PM EDT)
•UPDATE 1-Rackspace Q2 beats Street viewat Reuters(Thu 4:43PM EDT)
•Rackspace Hosting Earnings Cheat Sheet: Five Straight Quarters of Double-Digit GrowthWall St. Cheat Sheet(Thu 4:28PM EDT)
•Rackspace Q2 Revenue, EPS Beatat Barrons.com(Thu 4:20PM EDT)
•RACKSPACE HOSTING, INC. Files SEC form 8-K, Results of Operations and Financial Condition, Financial Statements and EEDGAR Online(Thu 4:07PM EDT)
•InPlay: Rackspace beats by $0.01, beats on revsBriefing.com(Thu 4:02PM EDT)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RAX
Analysts on the call:
Colby Synesael - Cowen and Company, LLC
Christopher Larsen - Piper Jaffray Companies
Gray Powell - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Jonathan Schildkraut - Evercore Partners Inc.
Patrick Walravens - JMP Securities LLC
Louie DiPalma (on behalf of James Breen with William Blair)
Simon Flannery - Morgan Stanley
Scott Goldman - Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Gregory Dunham - Crédit Suisse AG
Mitesh Dhruv - Merrill Lynch
http://seekingalpha.com/article/284875-rackspace-hosting-s-ceo-discusses-q2-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=participants
Should see somewhat of a correction tomorrow...
Rackspace Hosting Reports Second Quarter 2011 Results
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110804006780/en/Rackspace-Hosting-Reports-Quarter-2011-Results
For the quarter ended June 30, 2011:
* Net revenue of $247.2 million grew 32% year-over-year and 7.5% from Q1 2011
* Adjusted EBITDA (1) of $81.6 million grew 31% year-over-year and 7.5% from Q1 2011
* Net income of $17.6 million grew 57% year-over-year and 27% from Q1 2011
SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rackspace® Hosting, Inc. (NYSE: RAX), the world's leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2011.
Net revenue for the second quarter of 2011 was $247.2 million, up 7.5% from the previous quarter and 32.0% from the second quarter of 2010. Net revenue for the second quarter of 2011 was positively impacted by currency exchange rates when compared to the first quarter of 2011 by $1.1 million and the second quarter of 2010 by $5.1 million.
Total server count increased to 74,028, up from 70,473 servers at the end of the previous quarter, and total customers increased to 152,578, up from 142,441 at the end of the previous quarter.
“This past quarter we made good progress toward our goal of accelerating revenue growth while strengthening the business. While we still have lots to accomplish throughout the year, we remain on the right track to achieve our goals for 2011,” said Karl Pichler, chief financial officer.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $81.6 million, a 7.5% increase compared to the first quarter of 2011 and a 31% increase compared to the second quarter of 2010. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 33.0% compared to 33.0% for the previous quarter and 33.2% for the second quarter of 2010. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin were negatively impacted by a non-cash charge of $2.8 million for the quarter relating to data center operating leases.
Net income was $17.6 million for the quarter, up 27.1% from the previous quarter and 56.8% from the second quarter of 2010. Net income margin for the quarter was 7.1% compared to 6.0% for the previous quarter and 6.0% in the second quarter of 2010.
Cash flow from operating activities was $79 million for the second quarter of 2011. Capital expenditures were $95 million, including $49 million for purchases of customer gear, $17 million for data center build outs, $14 million for office build outs and $15 million for capitalized software and other projects.
Adjusted free cash flow (1) for the quarter was $(18) million.
At the end of the second quarter of 2011, cash and cash equivalents were $132 million. Debt obligations totaled $139 million, consisting of $137 million related to capital leases and $2 million related to current and non-current debt.
On a worldwide basis, Rackspace employed 3,712 Rackers as of June 30, 2011, up from 3,492 Rackers as of March 31, 2011 and 3,002 Rackers as of June 30, 2010.
“During the second quarter we grew faster and generated higher returns, while investing to help us become bigger and more profitable in the future,” said Lanham Napier, president and chief executive officer.
Rackspace Developments and Business Highlights
* Growing Momentum for OpenStack: With over 90 participating companies, the project continues to see major traction including its most recent code release, Cactus Code, accompanied by the Cactus Design Summit/OpenStack Conference in Santa Clara, CA, with over 500 attendees, 133 participating organizations and 217 developers. This event was followed by the announcement of Citrix’s Project Olympus, a new cloud infrastructure product based on OpenStack, which is designed to allow enterprises to quickly build and deploy OpenStack based clouds. Last month, we also began to see major traction of OpenStack in Europe. We held an OpenStack Day in London — the first for our community in Europe and had over 350 people in attendance.
* Domino’s Pizza Group chooses Rackspace: To help drive revenue and future growth, pizza delivery expert Domino’s Pizza Group has selected Rackspace to provide them with RackConnect, an integrated cloud hosting and dedicated managed hosting service. The service will give Domino’s a scalable and cost-effective platform that will support the execution of the company’s ambitious growth strategy and meet the evolving demands of its online business. Domino’s sought a hosting service that would meet the evolving demands of its online business, and allow its internal IT team to focus less on the maintenance of its online properties and business applications, and more on innovation.
* Launch of Hosted Virtual Desktop: In May, Rackspace announced the availability of Rackspace Hosted Virtual Desktop. The hosted virtual desktop platform utilizes Rackspace’s comprehensive hosting services and may be paired with industry leading desktop virtualization solutions from Citrix and other joint channel partners. The offering enables customers to host their virtual desktops on their choice of dedicated and/or cloud solutions.
* Continued European Cloud Growth: Since its launch in January, Rackspace’s UK cloud has been steadily growing and now has over 5,000 customers. To help meet this demand, the UK added new cloud services including Cloud Servers with managed service level and Cloud Load Balancers. The new UK offerings build upon Rackspace’s existing portfolio and are already available in the US.
Conference Call and Webcast
Management will host a conference call to discuss the results starting today at 4:30 p.m. ET.
To access the conference call, please dial 888-523-1227 from the United States or dial 719-325-2249 from abroad and reference pass code 4289158. A live webcast and a replay of the conference call will be available on Rackspace’s website, located at ir.rackspace.com.
About Rackspace Hosting
Rackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud platform. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support® to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company and was featured on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. The company was also positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the “2010 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting.” For more information, visit http://www.rackspace.com .
Rackspace Hosting Earnings Preview
By Motley Fool Staff | More Articles
August 1, 2011 | Comments (0)
Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX ) came in under analysts' estimates last quarter but now has a chance to fix things this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Thursday. Rackspace Hosting is a provider of hosting and cloud computing services.
What analysts say:
•Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Rackspace Hosting with 12 of 19 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Rackspace Hosting as much as competitor Equinix overall. Seventeen out of 24 analysts rate Equinix a buy compared with seven of 19 for Rackspace Hosting. While analysts still rate the stock a Hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared with three months ago.
•Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $241.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 28.8% from the year-ago quarter.
•Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.12 per share. Estimates range from $0.11 to $0.15.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/08/01/rackspace-hosting-earnings-preview.aspx
RAX has sure been stuck in this range for awhile. Time for a big move up.......
4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Rackspace Hosting
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43926980/ns/business-motley_fool/
It's done this a couple or so other times. So far, always seems to come back into the $40's.
It was up nicely after hours from the close.
Yikes! Down $1.48 today.
Anyone have any thoughts as to why?
Great find! Thank you.
Rackspace is getting their hands into everything they can.
I believe they are hungry and appear to be under constant expansion.
Seven Questions for Rackspace CTO John Engates
June 15, 2011 at 7:32 am PT
http://allthingsd.com/20110615/seven-questions-for-rackspace-cto-john-engates/?reflink=ATD_yahoo_ticker
"In a completely rational world, Rackspace would no longer be a independent company. The Web host that has in recent years veered into the cloud services business was held steady to its independent streak as several of its rivals have been rolled up by larger companies. In fact assumptions that Rackspace would be next have spurred much of the growth in the company’s stock price, which has in recent weeks been trading at historic highs, and the shares are up more than 35 percent just since January.
No, it’s not an entirely rational company, but rather a “fanatical” one. That’s the word the company uses in its marketing messaging to describe its customer service, but its wouldn’t be inaccurate to use the same word to describe the dedication of CEO Lanham Napier and his team to remain independent and take full advantage of the cloud computing opportunity that lies ahead. And from that you can conclude that they see a big opportunity and you’d be right. Rackspace executives are now accustomed to questions from persistent reporters like myself pressing them on the subject of being acquired. The answer, now as before, is still no.
In fact Rackspace sees the cloud opportunity as being so bit that it has made some acquisitions of its own to exploit in. In February it grabbed Anso Labs in a bit of an acq-hire deal that brought the team that built NASA’s cloud computing system to Rackspace. That move was part of a wider strategy to promote Openstack, an open-source cloud computing platform that Rackspace has spearheaded with partners including Dell, Cisco Systems Citrix, and with a little help from — get this — Microsoft.
These were among the many things I talked over with Rackspace CTO John Engates as he stopped by my office in New York recently....."
I am guessing, but these make sense to me.
TAM = Total Available Market
SMB = Small to Medium Businesses
Thanks. In the post, I understand LT,PO,and SOTP. Do you know what is referred to as TAM and SMB? I'd go on a google hunt but I'm trying to listen to another co's ASM webcast. :)
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is out with its report today on Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX), maintaining Buy.
In a note to clients, Bank of America Merrill Lynch writes, "RAX remains our top infrastructure Cloud name differentiating itself through quality support, proprietary management software and scale. RAX is a LT winner chasing an estimated $10bn TAM and levered to a potential SMB recovery (~90% of revs). Our PO of $49 is based on our SOTP analysis of managed hosting and Cloud."
Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/11/06/1131878/bank-of-america-merrill-lynch-maintains-buy-on-rackspace#ixzz1O89LmUj3
Rackspace earnings up 40.9 percent in first quarter
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2011/05/10/rackspace-achieves-earnings-growth-in.html
Rackspace Hosting Inc. concluded the first quarter of 2011 with sizable increases in net income, revenue and earnings per share as the company continues to grow.
San Antonio-based Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) reported net income of $13.8 million, or 10 cents per diluted share, on revenues of $230 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2011. This compares to net income of $9.8 million, or 7 cents per diluted share, on revenues of $178.8 million for the same period a year ago.
Revenue for the first quarter was up 28.6 percent from the first quarter of 2010. Net income was up 40.9 percent from the first quarter of 2010. Total server count increased to 70,473 at the end of the most recent quarter. Total customers increased to 142,441.
“Our plan for 2011 is to become more competitive and seize the massive market opportunity ahead of us, while improving the economics of our model by becoming more capital efficient. The progress we made in Q1 shows that we are off to a great start executing on our plan,” says Rackspace President and CEO Lanham Napier.
Rackspace is an information technology and cloud-computing company.
“During the quarter we invested across the organization to drive higher growth as well as increase our service level capability and enhance our product portfolio,” says Karl Pichler, chief financial officer.
In Oct 2010 the short interest in RAX was at a high of over 29M. While RAX shareprice steadily climbed, the short interest has dropped to 14.36M end of April 2011.
Perhaps on today's big drop a few more have covered....unltimately, this train will run over them. imo.
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/shortinterests.aspx?symbol=RAX&selected=RAX
Oppenheimer lowered its EPS estimates on shares of Rackspace through 2012 as investments in infrastructure could impact earnings in the shorter term. In the report, Oppenheimer maintained its perform rating on the stock.
Credit Suisse analysts raised their price target on shares of Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE: RAX) from $42.00 to $50.00. They now have an “outperform” rating on the stock.
Credit Suisse analysts raised their price target on shares of Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE: RAX) from $42.00 to $50.00. They now have an “outperform” rating on the stock.
Rackspace Hosting Reports First Quarter 2011 Results
For the quarter ended March 31, 2011:
Net revenue of $230.0 million grew 28.6% year-over-year and 7.1% from Q4 2010
Adjusted EBITDA (1) of $75.9 million grew 27.8% year-over-year and 5.4% from Q4 2010
Net income of $13.8 million grew 40.9% year-over-year and 2.1% from Q4 2010
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Rackspace-Hosting-Reports-bw-2524055923.html?x=0&.v=1
Yes, it will be sold at the "right" price, as management has made it very clear what their responsibility is to shareholders (ie: max value for the company).
That being said, it is management's desire and continued plan to grow and make RAX a great company. RAX is really at the early stages of what could be an absolutely terrific long term hold for a shareholder. They are hiring over 1200 new 'rackers' this year....company is a dynamic growth story.
The replay of the annual meeting is quite good.
Never say Never!
I worked for a software company CEO in the 90's that said he would never sell the company to CA. In 2000 before the dot.com bust he sold the company to CA for $4B. The $4B offer got his attention.
IMHO: If the price is right RAX will be sold. That's why I am holding long term. With a $5B mkt cap the buyer will need to be some one BIG.
"We haven't built this company to sell it....."
"We have the opportunity to build a 20-30 billion dollar company" (around minute 49 in link in prior post)
The meeting video is around an hour in length....well done, imo.
Rackspace ® Hosting (NYSE:RAX), the world's leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, will be live-streaming its annual meeting of the stockholders on May 3, 2011 at 8:30 a.m. CDT. The live stream will be available for viewing at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rackspace-stockholder-meeting and access to a recorded version of the meeting will be made available on the Company’s website at http://ir.rackspace.com.
RAX Last pure play in the space?
CenturyLink (www.centurylink.com), one of the largest telecommunications carriers in the United States announced on Wednesday morning that it had entered into an agreement to buy managed hosting provider Savvis (www.savvis.com) in a cash and stock merger worth a total of approximately $2.5 billion.
Next Generation Rackspace Cloud Files with Akamai Integration
Press Release Source: Rackspace Hosting On Wednesday April 27, 2011, 10:00 am
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Next-Generation-Rackspace-bw-3350922999.html?x=0&.v=1
Amazon’s Trouble Raises Cloud Computing Doubts By STEVE LOHR
Published: April 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/technology/23cloud.html
A little trouble in Amazon's cloud today......
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Amazon-failure-takes-down-apf-2858263645.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=
It's not uncommon for Internet services to become inaccessible due to technical problems, sometimes for hours or even days. But Thursday's outages were notable because Amazon's servers are so commonly used, meaning many sites went down at once.
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. It has not revealed how many companies use its Web services or how many were affected by the outage.
No one knew for sure how many people were inconvenienced, but the services affected are used by millions.
Amazon Web Services provide "cloud" or utility-style computing in which customers pay only for the computing power and storage they need, on remote computers.
Seattle-based Amazon has big plans for AWS. Although it now makes up just a few percent of the company's revenue, CEO Jeff Bezos said last year that it could eventually be as large as Amazon's retail business. Competitors include Rackspace Hosting Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s Azure platform.Some people consider cloud computing more reliable than conventional hosting services in which a small company might rent a handful of computers in a data center.
If one of them malfunctions, the failure can take down a website. But "clouds" like AWS use vast banks of computers. If one fails, the tasks that it performs, such as running a website or a game, can immediately be taken over by others.
Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers Brings Ease of Use and Fanatical Support to Load Balancing
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110419005752/en/Rackspace-Cloud-Load-Balancers-Brings-Ease-Fanatical
April 19, 2011 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rackspace® Hosting, the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, today announced the availability of Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers. Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers provides operational efficiency to customers, is easy to set up and provides seamless integration with Rackspace Cloud Servers™ or Rackspace dedicated servers.
With this offering, businesses of all sizes can now have access to a new cloud-based load balancing solution that gives them the ability to scale mission critical applications or quickly build high availability configurations. The automated component distributes workloads across multiple Rackspace Cloud Servers to minimize response time and avoid server overload. Rackspace customers benefit from being able to intuitively set up a load balancer in minutes while providing application fault-tolerance cost-effectively.
“Load balancing is a fundamental component for companies that host applications in the cloud. Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers provides businesses with a simple, yet feature-rich, tool to scale applications and increase overall reliability,” said Josh Odom, product line leader of platform for the Rackspace Cloud. “We relied heavily on input from our customers in developing an offering that we believe exceeds the capabilities of other load balancing options on the market today.”
Powered by Zeus Technology, Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers is backed by Fanatical Support® and includes such features as:
* Static IP addresses
* Built-in high availability
* Multiple protocols and algorithms
* API & control panel access
* Session persistence
With pay as you go pricing and no upfront fees, Rackspace customers are already realizing the benefits that Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers has to offer.
"Our sites get about a million hits a day, so load balancing is vital to keeping our business up and running,” said Rob Volk, Chief Technology Officer of Live Smart Solutions. “With Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers, we know we have a reliable platform, and it’s a big cost savings, too. The load balancers are definitely handling a lot - we’ve had no problems, and they’re scaling beyond what we can imagine.”
About Rackspace Hosting
Rackspace Hosting is the world's leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, and the founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud platform. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support® to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company and was featured on Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. The company was also positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the “2010 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting.” For more information, visit http://www.rackspace.com .
Rackspace's Big Customers Keep It On Cloud 9
By VANCE CARIAGA, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 04/19/2011 02:48 PM ET
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=569561&ven=yahoo
"In a note, Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan credited Rackspace for generating more revenue per customer by selling more services.
"(Rackspace is) well-positioned to become the dominant services company for cloud computing," Horan wrote."
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Fanatical Support® has made Rackspace the world's leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry. We deliver enterprise-level hosting services to businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world. We got started in 1998 and since have grown to serve more than 130,000 customers, including over 110,000 cloud computing customers. Rackspace integrates the industry's best technologies for each customer's specific need and delivers it as a service via the company's commitment to Fanatical Support. Our core products include Managed Hosting, Cloud Hosting and Email & Apps. There are currently over 3,200 Rackers around the world serving our customers. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Rackspace provides a portfolio of compute platforms, ranging from traditional Dedicated Managed Hosting to The Rackspace Cloud to Email & Apps. The best configuration for your business may span more than one platform. By mixing-and-matching compute platforms, Rackspace can help create the optimal compute solution for your business. About RackConnect™: How Does It Work?
Close Pane Every business has unique IT requirements, regardless of company size or type of organization. When considering hosting some element of your IT infrastructure, it is critical that your hosting provider's solution aligns well with the needs of your business and applications. Scalable Web Applications Dedicated Managed Hosting for high performance custom dedicated gear to handle intense database functions linked to Cloud Hosting to handle unpredictable traffic and storage needs.Major League Gaming SaaS Vendor/Reseller/Web Developer Combine Managed Hosting and Cloud Hosting to match your budget and all your customers' individual needs.Cramer Dev Dev/Test/Staging/Production Develop, test and stage code on the scalable and easy to deploy Cloud Hosting then promote code directly to your Dedicated Managed Hosting production environment.Inavero |
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