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Strengths
Constantly implementing new features not available anywhere else (most recently Jabber, Razor spam filter) in a user-friendly and accessible way, and then making them available on all of our plans (starting at $9.95/month).
We are also one of the very few shared hosts that run ALL our servers off high-end netapp filers. This allows us to load balance among all our accounts and in the case of a catastrophic machine failure get a replacement machine up and running in less than an hour. Again, even on our $9.95/month account.
We are also independant, honest, hardworking, small, fun, and give great support. We only run linux servers (debian) and love testing out new technologies and figuring out how to best provide them to all our customers!
Main Customers
What is the future of web hosting and where do you see it going?
Although a lot of people see industry consolidation in the near to mid term, I personally don't think that will result in the inability of smaller web hosts to compete. Although there are major economies of scale in web hosting, you can reach them pretty quickly, and you don't have to be that big in order to be profitable. Soon there will only be three types of hosts: big shared hosts that have something of a name brand (though even Interland is probably only been heard of by less than 1% of the US population), small shared hosts that are maybe just one person operations, and dedicated server/colocation hosts.
I think the big shared hosts will actually be in the worst situation: unless they keep their prices low, their customers will realize they're not really providing anything they couldn't get from a cheaper and smaller (perhaps local) host. Since web hosting really only requires at the minimum one server and an Internet connection anywhere in the world, the larger hosts really can't offer any features a smaller host can't (unlike say in the dial-up ISP world where it requires a lot of initial investment to get local connection numbers across the country).
I think DreamHost is in a good position for the future, because we're of a size that allows us to achieve all the benefits of being big (redundant network, hardware, 24-7 support team), but we still compete with small hosts in terms of price. We honestly feel that we are the best choice for anybody who doesn't require a Microsoft hosting solution. And we're going to work hard to stay that way!
Also, the future of web hosting is plastics.
Company
Descriptions
DreamHost
was started in 1997 by four computer science undergrads at Harvey Mudd College (hmc.edu) in Claremont, California. We got $1000 together and bought a Pentium 60, installed
Linux on it, and hid it under a desk at a friend's office (they had a T1!).
Since then we've grown entirely organically with no outside investment, always keeping our prices low and our our technology new. We've now got over 18,000 customers, 60,000 domains, 200 servers, 20 employees, and a run rate of close to $5,000,000 annually. Practically all our growth, has been through word of mouth referrals, and we continue to grow at a rate of 40% annually.
Our customers love us because of our stable serves, our low prices, our great customer service, and above all, our incredible feature set. We have a custom-built web-panel that controls all aspects of our shared web hosting system, from automatic account set up and billing, to turning on and off shell access for users. All our plans include unlimited MySQL databases, lots of sub-domains, Jabber instant messaging, Razor spam filtering, lots of disk space, full CGI, shell access, lots of emailboxes, a free domain registration, PHP, crontabs, instant account activation, frontpage extensions, and more.
Our employees love us because we're a small team of dedicated individuals in a relaxed work environment (as relaxed as possible considering we have over 200 servers!) with good pay, plenty of benefits, and an understanding management team. We feel having your employees love their job is a prerequisite of having your customers love your company! And having your customers love your company is a prerequisite of making a profit.. which is a prerequisite of running a reliable service for years and years!
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