Last Wednesday morning, 50 students from the St. Mary’s University’s College of Business were bused over to visit the Rack! Graham gave a presentation on corporate social responsibility, ethics, and how Rackers work hard every day to uphold our Core Values. Along with getting a peek of the Castle and listening to a great presentation from our Chairman, the students were able to have a Q&A session as well. It was a great success, and according to the Dean of the College of Business, Dr. Gilley, “All my students want to be Rackers now!”.

See below for pictures of their visit.

Last week, we launched the availability of Dell’s new 11g server, the PowerEdge R710. We don’t normally launch products the same day they become available to the market because we want to ensure that they’re ready and we’re able to provide our customers with the support and service they’ve come to expect from Rackspace. We’re confident with the R710, we can. The R710 is the replacement for the 2950 MK III. From our perspective, it’s a premium server that is ideally suited for virtualized environments. The capability it can provide proved compelling enough to launch with Dell and Intel.

With the introduction of Intel’s Nehalem architecture and DDR3 memory with a maximum capacity of 144 GB of memory, our customers will be able to get more value out of a single server. And the more our customers get out of their servers, the more we get out of our datacenter.

We’re proud to announce the unveiling of our “Shared Community Compact” – a first of its kind partnership between Rackspace and North East Independent School District (NEISD). On Friday, April 3rd we announced our commitment to the revitalization of our surrounding community at an event at Roosevelt High School. To exemplify our commitment, Lanham Napier, president and CEO, Graham Weston, Chairman, NEISD Superintendent of Schools, NEISD leadership, student representatives and school principals signed the Compact which provides this initiative’s framework and intentions.

The Community Compact includes a joint effort to provide technology funding for all of the “Magnificent Seven” (the seven schools that surround Rackspace), literacy initiatives,  parent and teacher academies, more access to community resources, engaged parents, engaged students, a vibrant community, and socially responsible corporations.

“At Rackspace, we see an opportunity to build a world-class community right where we work and live,” said Graham. “Working closely with our neighbors at Roosevelt High School, and creating a fully involved community, from students and teachers, to citizens and companies, is our end goal and our support of the Compact will help bring that vision to fruition.”

“NEISD is privileged to have a community-focused company like Rackspace in our own backyard,” said Dr. Richard A. Middleton, Superintendent of Schools. “This is a tremendously valuable commitment for NEISD, and it will help launch our students and community toward success. Even in these economic times, Rackspace is stepping up as a role model and their support will certainly set the bar high for other businesses.”

See below for pictures of the event!