Server power for small businesses

Cut-price dedicated server space launched by Freeparking this month is giving small and medium-sized businesses the chance to manage their own virtual world.

The general manager of the Auckland-based server provider, Richard Shearer, said the plans represented a price breakthrough in New Zealand.

The dedicated servers are predominantly aimed at businesses with a high dependence on internet applications such as websites, email and online database access.

Shearer said the cost, $200 a month, was about half current rates.

"It's not a trick deal where we're giving you a server and making you cough up for bandwidth.

"We're actually bundling it up with an industrial quantity of usable bandwidth."

Users receive 150GB - equating to 12 million web-page views - of national traffic and 5GB of international traffic capacity each month.

Shearer said the cost would let smaller business users move away from relying on shared server space, which often came with activity restrictions. 

Dedicated server space would enable a company to run up to 20 websites and potentially hundreds of email addresses.

Shearer said server management used to be the preserve of "techies" in large companies.

However, the development of user-friendly server management tools made it possible for smaller firms to manage systems internally.

"We're seeing small to medium businesses internalise rather than outsource because they're such mission-critical parts of the business nowadays."

Shearer expected demand to grow in line with the use of the internet as a business tool.

"As customers' needs become more complex, or more sensitive, as the web becomes embedded in their business, they need to move to dedicated servers."