Venali Chooses The Planet for IT Infrastructure

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Planet, the global leader in IT hosting, today announced that Internet messaging company Venali, Inc. (http://www.venali.com) has chosen the company to host its IT infrastructure. Headquartered in Miami, with offices in the United Kingdom, Germany and Singapore, Venali provides desktop and production fax solutions – including fax to e-mail conversion services – that streamline sending, receiving and managing fax communications.

“Our customers want rapid ROI, not a promise of savings in two years. They typically have a target on their heads to reduce costs, so the application they choose has to work well every time. I know we’ve been successful when they ask me what other services we provide.”

To support its global presence, Venali requires a geographically redundant infrastructure, robust network and solid uptime. The company made a strategic decision to move its infrastructure to a hosted solution, rather than managing it in-house. Following an extensive evaluation, Venali chose The Planet’s private racks solution, load balancers, gigabit switches and private networks to fulfill its requirements. For redundancy purposes, Venali operates in data centers located in Houston and Dallas.

“The decision we made to host with The Planet wasn’t singularly based on financials, but on the fact that it’s a smart business decision,” said Venali Chief Executive Officer John Poncy. “Just because we’re an IT services company doesn’t mean we can’t outsource. Our IT team and developers who work closely with customers took time to understand the IT hosting model. The Planet team provided both the cost-effective solutions we required and strong operational excellence. By outsourcing our IT infrastructure, we’re able to work on strategic initiatives in our company, expand our portfolio and grow our business.”

“In today’s economic environment, our customers tell us they want to focus more closely on their business, adding new products and services that are important to their long-term growth,” said Tom Blair, vice president of global sales with The Planet. “We deliver scalability, reliability and value, so they can do what they do best in their own companies, rather than worrying about their IT operations.”

Venali Snapshot

A graduate of West Point and The Wharton School, John Poncy also served as a Special Operations Officer and EDS executive. With his background and career experiences, he brings an acute understanding of critical success factors and the operational excellence provided by industry-leading uptime. His experience in the technology arena gives him the confidence and sense of customer requirements to cut to the chase when it comes to talking about his business.

For Poncy, it’s all about providing solid products, backed by top-notch service – and finding out from his clients what else Venali can provide to enrich their experience with the company.

“The first question I always ask customers is ‘how are you going to use our service?’ because that tells me exactly the product that will satisfy their requirements,” he notes. “Our customers want rapid ROI, not a promise of savings in two years. They typically have a target on their heads to reduce costs, so the application they choose has to work well every time. I know we’ve been successful when they ask me what other services we provide.”

Venali’s portfolio comprises products and services for three customer categories:

Enterprise – These Venali customers are looking for a platform that’s reliable, secure and scalable, which can be deployed across multiple locations, users and platforms. Also important is the opportunity to demonstrate a ‘green’ message by reducing paper and energy usage.
Channel Partners – To expand its business, Venali offers its capabilities through channel partners who desire to include fax capabilities in their services portfolio.
Small Office/Home Office – For these customers, Venali provides fax services from the devices they use for e-mail. With Web-based services and a simple pricing model that starts at $9.95, these customers want faxing that’s as easy as e-mail and requires very little customer support.

Because the Venali customer base spans multiple industries, the company must meet specific compliance requirements. From Sarbanes-Oxley to PCI, HIPAA and SAS 70, the team understands how they measure up and exceed customer expectations for each.

Looking to the future, Poncy says his product development team is looking to additional industries, expanded geographies and to new products and services, all with an eye to what’s next for his company.

To hear first-hand about Venali, visit The Planet Web site and watch a new video featuring CEO John Poncy: http://www.theplanet.com/videos/#venali.

About The Planet

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 18.5 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Northstar Managed Hosting™ and data center colocation, all backed by 24x7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit http://www.theplanet.com.