Interview Update: Conor-Hands-on Web Hosting
I decided to get an update on an interview I did with Conor and his business seems to be doing OK for it’s self. 
Check out the interview below.
*NOTE: Questions were asked to a group and Steve responded to the ones that applied to him.*
1. How has business been for the year 2009?
2. Do you think business will get better in 2010?
3. Did you add a new service or take away a service?
4. Health care, how will this affect you and your company?
5. Has member activity increased or decreased?
6. Do you think the forum will get more active in 2010?
7. Are you a member of my blog? -.^
8. Is there anything else you would like to add?
1. How has business been for the year 2009?
Great. Actually it was better than great. We’ve seen the implementation of new products, better hardware and more reliable systems not just with our own hosting company with with other companies and the web in general. We saw a blip earlier this year with some eCommerce shops closing their doors, there were more people setting up NEW shops than there were people closing down.
2. Do you think business will get better in 2010?
Business a whole will continue to strive for 2010. There are some big pushes happening for June 2010 when it comes to PCI Compliance which will affect online commerce, so we expect to see some frantic running around by customers trying to find compliant software and compliant hosting (both of which we have and do!). The biggest issue for 2010 I think will be “The Cloud”. People are trying to push The Cloud as being the place to be, but it’s so new that when something happens, people are forced to sit on their hands and shrug their shoulders. I don’t see The Cloud taking off like VPS Hosting during 2010, maybe 2011 it’ll be tested enough!
3. Did you add a new service or take away a service?
We added more reliable systems and expanded our service offerings with more bandwith, disk space and features. Our VPS offering received a huge bump in April 2009, and another one is being implemented here in the coming days (Christmast or New Years). We didn’t remove any services from our line up, however we did improve existing ones. We also expanded into Europe with dedicated servers and shared hosting located in England and Germany. We have expanded into the Australian market with dedicated servers also.
4. Health care, how will this affect you and your company?
Health Care will play a part for our small business as we’ll be forced to provide health care to our employees. While we want to provide Health Care (and do provide it for some employees), I personally believe it should be the choice of the business and not a forced government regulation. If we’re forced to provide health care to everyone, either new employees won’t be able to receive as much money in pay, or prices for some services will have to raise in order to cover costs. We operate on a very thin line for profit margin (near zero, as our employees share in our growth), so if we’re forced to pay out on something, everyone will take a hit.
7. Are you a member of my blog? -.^
Yep.
8. Is there anything else you would like to add?
It’s cold! I live in Omaha and we had about 9″ of snow last week, and we’re gearing up for another 10-14″ this weekend. The fire is lit, the snow is falling currently, and the heat is cranked up. Thankfully our servers are located in multiples states (and countries), and all our staff work from home offices so nobody has to drive in the bad weather.
