Virtualised, managed server hosting solution supports bold
online business objectives
Sydney - December 2009 -
Macquarie Hosting, a division of Macquarie Telecom, today
announced it has signed a three year, half million dollar deal
with Quickflix, Australia's largest independent online movie
subscription company (ASX: QFX). Under the deal,
Macquarie Hosting will host Quickflix's online portal of more
than 37,000 movies, TV series, documentary and sporting titles
as well as its mission critical applications including
subscription management databases, user generated reviews and
entertainment news. Quickflix launched in Australia in
2004 and offers a range of rental subscription plans with free
home delivery and no deadlines, late fees or PayTV style long
term contracts for customers. The Quickflix subscriber base
currently sits at more than 35,000 members (30,000 paying
subscribers) and has grown by 20 per cent in the last six months
alone. The Macquarie Hosting high-availability,
fully-managed virtualised
dedicated server solution will enable Quickflix to continue
to grow its member base without compromising the availability,
stability or quality of the service it delivers. The
deal also paves the way for Quickflix to leverage the success of
its online home delivery model to transition to a digital
download business where customers can select, download and watch
movies via IPTV services in the comfort of their own home. It is
expected this move will further grow the company's subscriber
base across Australia. Macquarie Hosting won the deal
following a competitive tender of managed
server hosting providers. Quickflix chose Macquarie Hosting
for its proven experience with digital media and online
entertainment companies as well as its specialisation in the
design and implementation of scalable, fully-redundant
virtualised hosting environments.
Managed hosting deal readies Quickflix to capitalise on NBN
The scalable infrastructure the Macquarie Hosting
partnership provides will be critical for Quickflix to
capitalise on the increased business opportunity the high speed
national broadband network will deliver. Access to
affordable, high speed broadband services for 96 per cent of
Australians is expected to increase the Quickflix targetable
audience. "The rollout of a national high speed
broadband network presents a huge opportunity for us and we
absolutely expect to see a transition from traditional rental
movie services to online downloadable movie services amongst
consumers," said Simon Hodge, Managing Director, Quickflix.
"Strong demand for online delivery of entertainment already
exists; a big limitation to date has been bandwidth and the
ability to deliver those services quickly, smoothly and cost
effectively. "That constraint is about to shift
dramatically. High speed broadband at reduced costs will open up
the market for our business and enable more Australians to
access and benefit from the range of content we offer."
The Macquarie Hosting virtualised solution gives Quickflix the
scalability it requires to cope with the anticipated growth in
subscribers driven by the NBN rollout as well as the assurance
it needs that it can manage peaks in traffic to its site as
demand grows. "Our website is absolutely critical to
our business and we need to ensure that it is available
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We need to deliver a
smooth and reliable experience for our customers, first time
every time, regardless of how many of them are accessing and
downloading content from the site simultaneously," Hodge said.
"We knew virtualization was the best way to achieve
this but we weren't infrastructure experts and didn't want to
be. "Macquarie Hosting showed us they understood our
business objective and could deliver the
managed server, virtualized hosting solution we required to
meet these needs quickly and cost effectively. The responsive
and flexible team also removed the ongoing administration burden
associated with managing peaks in traffic to our site and could
guarantee availability." Quickflix's mission-critical
applications and website will be housed in Macquarie Hosting's
ISO and DSD Gateway certified
data center, the Intellicentre. The
high-availability network infrastructure with redundant
firewalls, load balancing, switches and internet ports provide
low latency and security while high-speed tape backup and SAN
storage services provide added redundancy. Quickflix
also benefits from Macquarie Hosting's
PCI Compliance accreditation from the Payment Card Industry
Data Security Standards Council (PCI DSSC). This means it
complies with industry online business transaction requirements
and can secure customer information effectively. Aidan
Tudehope, Managing Director, Hosting for Macquarie Telecom,
said, "The NBN is exactly the platform innovative companies like
Quickflix have been calling for to support their development and
delivery of new services. "The bandwidth NBN will
deliver is a crucial driver of innovation and hence future
economic prosperity and growth. In our area of expertise we have
already seen a stream of innovation at all different levels
throughout the value-chain and expect to see a further explosion
in the next twelve to eighteen months as businesses ready
themselves for this new digital horizon." -Ends-
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