The love we’re getting from Gartner is even sweeter because, while we had a great year and did pioneering work in 2012, it was tough on our Rackers. We launched a suite of new open cloud products on tight deadlines, and we migrated many customers to our new platform.

This recognition from Gartner affirms that all the hard work and disruption was worthwhile. I’m proud of the Rackers who earned this great achievement, and the customers who stuck with us. It shows that our Fanatical Support and our move to the open cloud are paying off.

The Magic Quadrant, published April 9, 2013, places providers in four distinct categories based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute: Niche Players, Challengers, Visionaries and Leaders. We believe being included in the Leaders Quadrant affirms that we’re on the right track.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting for North America encompasses hosting on physical machines as well as managed cloud. It recognizes the importance of managed hosting, which, when coupled with public cloud computing, is a cornerstone of our open hybrid cloud — and the future of cloud computing.

This year, we’ll expand our hybrid cloud to offer each customer the ideal mix of public and private cloud services and dedicated hardware, on-premise or in our data centers. This approach gives each customer a cloud that fits its specific needs — an appealing alternative to cloud providers who believe that one size fits all.

While we’re all thrilled that Gartner has recognized us in its 2012 Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting for North America, we won’t rest on our laurels. We’ll remain laser-focused on expanding Fanatical Support, our hybrid cloud portfolio and the power of the open cloud.

Disclaimer:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Today, an announcement about Rackspace will start to appear in magazines, on websites and in big display ads in airports and other busy locations all over the world. The message is simple: RACKSPACE OPEN-SOURCED THE CLOUD. In partnership with NASA, we founded OpenStack as an open source cloud platform and community. We contributed the code for our cloud, worth millions of dollars, to the project, and put it in the hands of an independent foundation. And now our cloud is the world’s second largest, and we’re running it on OpenStack.

We feel it’s time to share our vision of a world that will no longer be dominated by a few closed, proprietary clouds that lock you in and try to convince you that one size fits all. We’re moving into a world of open standards where a million clouds will soar — where each business customer can find the right cloud for its unique needs, along with the reliability and flexibility that everyone deserves.

Our commitment to the open cloud flows directly out of our mission —to become one of the world’s great service companies — and our purpose: to make IT simple for business. Rackspace exists to help companies with great ideas achieve their goals through easy-to-use, reliable computing.

That’s why we’ve built a product portfolio of unmatched breadth. It lets each customer choose the ingredients for a cloud that fits its specific needs. It spans public and private cloud technologies, including both pooled and dedicated resources — all working seamlessly through our hybrid cloud solution.

That’s why we created a standard of customer service known throughout our industry as Fanatical Support.

That’s why we’ve invested heavily in our data centers and other infrastructure, which have delivered 99.999 percent uptime over the past five quarters.

That’s why today, as we issue the latest, greatest version of our OpenStack-powered Rackspace Private Cloud Software, we will, as before, make it available for free to anyone in the world who wants to use it, or just try it. We don’t want to make money by selling software. We want to earn our pay by helping customers use it, and we’re signing up more and more businesses who want to tap our expertise in launching and operating OpenStack-based private clouds.

In this way and others, our conception of Fanatical Support is expanding. As experts in the open cloud, it’s our job to help guide each customer to the solution that best suits its workloads, goals and budget.

Today’s software release and the launch of our brand campaign make me proud of what our Rackers have accomplished. As our story spreads, I’m confident that more and more businesses will join the open cloud revolution.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions, in the comments section below.

Over the past several months we’ve sharpened our open cloud story, a game-changing technology shift that alters the way IT operates and computing is consumed. What’s more? It’s built on open source technology called OpenStack, so our customers and contributors can see and influence the code. If they don’t like it, they can re-write or suggest improvements – it doesn’t get more transparent than that. And if something goes wrong, we’ll step up and take the blame and work to make things better.

Those key principles are also behind the OpenGov Foundation, an organization whose board I recently joined. I know you might be asking: a government-focused foundation? Really?

Yes, really.

The OpenGov Foundation is to government entities what Rackspace is to cloud computing. The organization bills itself as “a scrappy little outfit working to open government.” Sound familiar? Replace “government” with “the cloud” and the parallels between the OpenGov mission and ours here at Rackspace are downright eerie. It’s like we’re brothers from another mother.

And the OpenGov Foundation’s work on the Madison Project fits squarely into our core mission. Madison is a free open source software that provides an Internet-protecting alternative to SOPA and PIPA, two ill-fated Internet piracy bills I spoke out against last year.

Madison started by introducing the element of crowdsourcing to legislation and bill creation by adding user-generated improvements to the legislative process. Madison has evolved a bit beyond that, creating an environment where even more government documents are open to everyone to spark discussion, collaboration and improvement while prompting elected officials to listen to and learn from the public. Through the Madison Project, government can become open and give the people the power to shape laws and policy.

Open source software is a big step, but that alone can’t open up the government. The OpenGov Foundation is also charged with building communities of smart developers, users and instances; citizens who care what happens in Washington; and forward-thinking elected officials.

OpenGov goes further than a specific piece of legislation and a desire to open government data. The Foundation is bent on building tools and working together to solve problems as a community.

Bottom line: much like there was in the cloud, there is a major change needed when it comes to the government. It needs to be easier for people like you and me to access and use government information. We believe this is best accomplished through innovative tools and technologies, open access and community involvement. It goes back to that notion of transparency and accountability. The Madison Project is an incredible starting point.

Together, we all need to push for a government that listens, that works for its citizens and also learns from them. To do that, OpenGov is charged with putting better data and better tools into more hands and we must make those tools simple to use, efficient, scalable and free. Again, there are a lot of similarities here with what we’re doing with OpenStack and our open cloud.

Think of it this way, the government should provide us, its citizens, the Fanatical Support that we at Rackspace provide our customers. Just like the cloud democratizes IT, OpenGov works to democratize government – a key goal is to give every citizen a chance to be a hands-on contributor. Transparency creates broader participation in our democratic system. If citizens see what the government is doing, those citizens can be more active in their government.

During these challenging times, we need to push our political leaders to be effective. OpenGov can go a long way to improve the democratic process and increase or government’s effectiveness.

While we at Rackspace push to build an open, accessible and accountable cloud, the OpenGov Foundation wields its sledgehammers to break down the barriers of closed, inaccessible and unaccountable government.

If you interview for a position at Rackspace, you’ll hear this question or one like it. We strive to build a strengths-based culture that identifies what prospective hires were made to do and to put them into positions that let them flex those muscles. This approach helps us create a workforce that is more engaged and productive — a place where magic can happen.

I was pleased to see that our emphasis on strengths, coupled with our intensive interview process, landed Rackspace among Fortunes’ “25 toughest companies for job interviewees.” We ranked No. 11, above tech giants like Juniper Networks, Facebook and Amazon. Glassdoor.com combed through more than 80,000 job seekers’ interview ratings and reviews from the past 12 months to build the list. Each company was rated on a 5-point scale where 1 is “very easy” and 5 is “extremely difficult.” Rackspace clocked in at 3.4 and 72 percent said the interview was a positive experience.

Ranking in the top 11 is big. It shows that despite our rapid growth and hiring – last quarter we welcomed just less than 200 new hires to Rackspace – we still perform our due diligence to ensure our Rackers have the right stuff.

Yes, technological accomplishments, credentials and certifications carry a lot of weight here, but that only tells part of the story. We put a lot of focus on attitude and aptitude. We want Rackers who are quick learners and who can quickly integrate into our unique culture and dynamic business. Simply put, technology and other skills can be taught, but learning ability, passion, drive and personality cannot.

We’ve created an interview process through which candidates engage with multiple Rackers, sometimes more than a dozen, and often in small groups, including not only prospective colleagues from the department in which they’d work, but also from departments with which they would frequently collaborate. From there, a feedback session comprising all who interviewed the candidate convenes. Following the discussion, there is a silent vote in which interviewers rate the candidate based on a positive/negative point system. Only a candidate with a positive score can be hired.

I won’t lie; this system is tough on Rackers as well as candidates. But we think it’s worth the trouble. As we continue to grow and hire in all of our locations —in the U.S. in San Antonio, Austin, San Francisco, Blacksburg, Va., and Atlanta; internationally in London, Hong Kong, Zurich and Sydney; and in our data centers in Dallas-Fort Worth, Northern Virginia, Chicago, London and Hong Kong — you can bet that we’ll continue to carefully screen the talent pool to bring aboard top notch Rackers eager to offer Fanatical Support.

Think you got what it takes? Check us out at this link: We’re hiring.

We touched on lots of topics: international expansion; the importance of cloud security (just because you forgot your password doesn’t mean someone else can’t figure it out); and our decision to keep Rackspace rooted in Texas.

The conversation inevitably turned to the competition and what sets Rackspace apart from the technology heavyweights battling in the cloud. This conversation is at the heart of Rackspace being the open cloud company and our launch earlier this month of the OpenStack-powered Rackspace open cloud.

We’re the entrepreneurial upstart slugging it out with some of the largest technology companies in the world, and there are several key differentiators that set Rackspace apart. So when Squawk Box co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin asked me point blank how Rackspace is different from our key competitors, my answer was three-fold:

• The others in this space are generalists, we are specialists. We are laser-focused on Fanatical Support on the open cloud. This is all we do. We don’t have a retail business to worry about. We don’t have dozens of disparate product lines. We are all about cloud hosting in an open environment. Period.

• Our competitors use closed, proprietary technologies; we use open source technologies. Two years ago we founded OpenStack, the community-driven open source cloud operating system. And just this month we officially moved our public cloud onto OpenStack. We are committed to open standards and open source technologies. We’re putting our customers in the driver’s seat and empowering them to pack up and move if we’re not serving them correctly or if they find another provider that offers better features, service or value. We’re giving our customers the keys to avoid vendor lock-in.

• The rest of the market is playing a scale game; we’re playing a service game. We live and breathe Fanatical Support as we strive to become one of the greatest service companies in the world. We don’t want to be the biggest; we want to be the best. We’re combining great technology with the human element — knowledgeable, helpful and passionate Rackers who are available to customers 24×7 — to deliver great customer outcomes. We offer technology backed by peace of mind.

There was a fourth point of differentiation that I didn’t have time to mention on CNBC, and that’s our unmatched portfolio of cloud computing services, spanning public and private cloud, and dedicated and hybrid hosting.  We help customers put each workload on the right platform, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

I love getting out there and telling the Rackspace story. Squawk Box was a great opportunity to talk about the cloud and the work we’re doing. Yes, we’re duking it out in the ring with some massive competitors, and Fanatical Support on the open cloud is the one-two punch that will win us the championship belt.

In his column, Davidow lamented the loss of a service focus in the high-tech industry and highlighted a startling transformation in how technology companies treat their customers.

He reflected on his arrival at HP in the 1960s and how the company’s founders — along with other original Silicon Valley pioneers and tech trailblazers — used customer service as the foundation for their business. He called it the era of “Silicon Values;” a time when tech companies, both emerging and established, set out to delight customers with a level of service they couldn’t get elsewhere, a practice that earned customer loyalty and mutual respect. If customers weren’t treated fairly, they could easily pack up and leave for another provider.

“The company was focused on delivering advanced technology of great value, then servicing and supporting the customer to make sure he derived value from what he bought,” he wrote about HP. “Customers trusted Hewlett-Packard. I remember one customer who so trusted the salesman who took care of his account that he let the sales rep purchase what he needed. That period of trust went on for a long time. The salesman told me his secret: He never bought anything for the customer that the customer did not really need.”

Davidow, however, pointed to a frightening change in how customers are treated today. In some cases customer service has morphed into “customer exploitation,” he wrote. Consumers are being locked in to one company and find it difficult to escape, ultimately losing the power they posses as a customer: the power to choose another vendor. This is a sharp contrast to the service focus of previous decades.

There’s no question that cloud computing has changed the technology landscape. It has vastly enhanced the speed, agility and flexibility of computing, while introducing a swifter pace of innovation. But as customers’ applications are becoming more deeply fused into the infrastructure of their cloud provider, they get locked into that vendor. Switching providers becomes difficult and extremely costly.

We believe the shift to the Open Cloud stops this dangerous trend in its tracks.

Through our Fanatical Support and our commitment to liberate customers from vendor lock-in, Rackspace works to recapture the values that Davidow remembers. Our mission is to provide Fanatical Support on the Open Cloud. We’re deploying open-source technologies that put the customers back at the center of things, where they belong.  It’s a model that empowers customers, and forces tech companies to compete on the basis of customer outcomes and results, rather than on customer exploitation. Instead of trapping them in the first cloud provider that they chose, an Open Cloud model gives customers the freedom to move to a new provider anytime they feel they can get better features or service or pricing.  It creates real choice and control over their technology and its future, along with a service experience they can’t get from anyone else.

We’re bringing service and trust to the cloud computing industry, just as we’ve done for more than a decade in managed hosting. We’re breaking the cycle of customer exploitation and lock-in that has emerged. With Fanatical Support on the Open Cloud, Rackspace will help our customers succeed.

We are working to build the service leader in cloud computing, and we believe this recognition from Gartner confirms that Fanatical Support really does deliver incredible outcomes to our customers.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant has become one of the most influential research reports upon which IT buyers use for their evaluations and purchases. Gartner evaluates each provider for completeness of vision and ability to execute, and then places providers into four distinct categories: Niche Players, Challengers, Visionaries and Leaders. Rackspace is honored to be named in the Leaders Quadrant for Managed Hosting.

Landing in the Leader Quadrant is no small feat. It took a massive amount of work and dedication from our Rackers to earn the leadership designation from Gartner, and we’re pleased to share this news with our customers and company. Our success is fueled by Rackers volunteering their best work to deliver Fanatical Support to our customers.

In 2011, Rackspace made several major advancements in its product and services portfolio to better serve our SMB and Enterprise customers, and we plan on making even more important advances in 2012.

Last year we also saw the launch of Rackspace Cloud Builders, which provides consultative work around OpenStack, and the continued growth of Rackspace’s hybrid hosting offering, RackConnect; both of which helped vault Rackspace into the leadership segment. RackConnect offers the ability to bridge multiple environments – dedicated, public and private clouds – over a single virtual network while maintaining security.

We’re honored to be recognized as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting.  We have very important work to do in 2012 as we invest in our culture and advance our products and services.  Some of the exciting work ahead of us includes increasing our product and service capability on OpenStack and investing in new tools that power Fanatical Support.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

By Lanham Napier
CEO, Rackspace

When Rackspace first joined the SOPA/PIPA fight, experts told us that we would have an uphill battle. The bills, backed by the legions of lobbyists from the motion picture industry, had overwhelming support from both parties in Congress and were almost certain to pass. We were also cautioned that fighting the bills would most likely be futile. “In football terms,” we were told, “there’s a minute left to play and you’re down by three touchdowns.”

Even with the odds stacked against us, we knew that Rackspace had to stand up for our Rackers, customers and shareholders, and for what we believe: that SOPA and PIPA would do far more harm than good. Neither bill would help Rackspace in our daily fight to sink online pirates. Furthermore, the legislation could capsize the Internet, especially by using the Domain Name System to block Americans’ access to foreign websites.

We made our views known — on this blog, in interviews with journalists, in talks with leaders in our community and with key lawmakers. Hundreds of individual Rackers around the U.S. phoned and emailed their representatives in Congress, and officials at the White House, who eventually came out against the bills as filed.

By now, you know the score: both SOPA and PIPA have been pulled from the legislative agenda for this year. The bills are being sent back to committee, with instructions to take into account the concerns of Internet users and service providers like Rackspace.

It’s been amazing to see the Internet community stand together against these bills, through blackout of popular sites like Wikipedia, and through millions of messages sent to members of Congress. Our goal now is to harness that energy and use it to help craft new legislation that will be effective in fighting online piracy, and enhance the security, smooth functioning and job creating power of the Internet economy.

We see some promising alternative approaches in the OPEN Act, which better balances the interests of copyright holders, such as movie studios, with the concerns of Internet users and service providers. We also find encouraging some of the theft-detection algorithms and other technical solutions that have been voluntarily adopted by platforms, such as YouTube.

It is now time to go back to the drawing board and bring together business and technical experts to curtail online piracy, while encouraging the growth of the Internet economy. That effort should include ALL stakeholders in this legislation, including cloud providers, hosting companies, Internet service providers, payment processors, search providers and experts in Internet engineering and security. Most of these important constituencies were not at the table during the last go round. This needs to be corrected in order to write a fair and effective bill.

I encourage all Rackers and others in the Internet community to apply their expertise and imagination to the challenge of online piracy. Please let me know your ideas, and your feedback.

By Lanham Napier
CEO, Rackspace

To read our latest on this issue, click here.

In my last blog post on SOPA and PIPA, I explained why Rackspace —along with much of the Internet community — opposes these bills in their current form. They are well-intentioned, but would do more harm than good. Their enforcement provisions could be easily evaded, and they would undermine the security and stability of the Internet.

Since then, I and other Rackers have been working with key lawmakers to fix the bills so that they will (a) actually be effective in fighting online piracy, and (b) avoid disrupting the Internet or imposing unreasonable costs on Internet users and service providers.

We at Rackspace are on the front lines of the battle against copyright infringers and other online criminals. We employ dedicated teams that take enforcement actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as well as our own strict Acceptable Use Policy every day. We agree that better tools are needed for this fight but SOPA and PIPA do not fit the bill.

We have traveled to Washington to discuss SOPA and PIPA with leading lawmakers. We have blogged about our concerns and given interviews to interested journalists. We have discussed the issue with business executives and other leaders in our community. We’re pleased that our efforts, and those of the entire Internet community, are having a positive effect.

Key legislators in both houses of Congress have recently said that they will remove the provisions for blocking of websites through the Domain Name System (DNS), which are among the most-disruptive and troubling features of SOPA and PIPA. The White House has called for a fresh approach to the issue that would hear the concerns and suggestions of all stakeholders, and would balance the fight against online piracy with due process protections and the sound functioning of the Internet.

I had accepted an invitation to testify before Congress this week on the DNS website-blocking provisions, but that hearing has been cancelled, thanks to changes being made in SOPA and PIPA. I and other Rackers are working with key lawmakers on those changes, providing our ideas, and studying the ideas of others.

Some Senators are working to bring PIPA — as written, with the DNS website-blocking provisions in place — to a floor vote, through a cloture motion on January 24th. I encourage you to call or email your Senators and urge them to vote against the cloture motion, and instead work toward an improved anti-piracy bill.

Here’s a convenient link you can use to reach the Senators for your state: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfmrepr

We’re making progress in blocking bad legislation and working toward something better, but we need to keep the pressure on. I’m going to keep making my views known, and I hope you’ll do the same.

By Lanham Napier
CEO, Rackspace

To read our latest on this issue, click here.

Part of the professional code of physicians is that, when they’re treating a patient’s ailment, they should “first, do no harm.”  I wish more members of Congress would follow that rule.  Instead, in the name of policing the online theft of intellectual property, key lawmakers are pushing a cure that’s worse than the disease.

I refer to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), now awaiting a final vote in the House Judiciary Committee.  The authors of the bill say their goal is to crack down on websites that traffic in stolen movies, music, software, and other intellectual property.  That’s a goal that we at Rackspace share.  But we’ve studied the SOPA bill closely and conferred with experts in our company and elsewhere in the technology industry, and we believe that it would not achieve its stated purpose.  Foreign IP thieves, in particular, could find ways to evade the law.

Meanwhile, SOPA would require that Rackspace and other Internet service providers censor their customers with little in the way of due process, trumping the protections present in the current Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  What’s more, the SOPA bill would seriously disrupt the Domain Name Service that is crucial to the smooth operation of the web.

The SOPA bill, as it stands, is a deeply flawed piece of legislation.  It is bad for anyone who uses the Internet, including Rackspace, the more than 160,000 business customers that we serve, and the tens of millions of retail customers that they serve.  It is bad for job creation and innovation.

We at Rackspace oppose SOPA in its current form. 

We have been working diligently with members of Congress and their staffs in an attempt to amend the bill.  Last week, I traveled to Washington to meet with key members of Congress and their aides, urging them to slow down, take the time to understand the basics of the industry that they propose to regulate, and get this legislation right.  We’re continuing to work with those lawmakers over the holidays.

In the meantime, I have asked Rackspace employees to contact their representatives and tell them of the harm that the SOPA bill, as written, would do to our customers and employees, and more broadly to the Internet and the economy.  I urge everyone reading this post to do the same.  If you’d like to learn more about the SOPA bill, I suggest you read the articles at the links listed below.  And please let me know your thoughts on this vital issue.

SOPA – Wikipedia
Why Do We Have to Break the DNS? – Dyn
SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It – Mythbuster Adam Savage on Popular Mechanics
Adam Savage on Popular Mechanics