December 8, 2009 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Macquarie Hosting, a division of Macquarie Telecom, has 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).
The Macquarie Hosting high-availability, fully-managed virtualised 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 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, 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 centre, 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."
About Macquarie Hosting
Macquarie Hosting is the Australian leader in providing mission critical application hosting for business.
It is responsible for managing and delivering the guaranteed service levels, scalable, ‘always-on’ and secure solutions that online, digital media and high-availability transaction-based companies need to meet demand for their services.
Macquarie Hosting’s purpose is to help its customers focus on growing their business, instead of focusing on the day-to-day operations of their IT infrastructure.
Macquarie Hosting’s managed services are delivered through its managed hosting and security facility, the Intellicentre.
The Intellicentre is the most highly certified data centre in Australia. Certifications include ISO 27001, ASIO T4 and DSD Gateway. This helps organisations confidently address security concerns associated with corporate governance, privacy regulations and audit requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley.
Macquarie Hosting delivers these ‘always-on’, secure managed services by:
· Supporting customers with named dedicated account teams delivering personal and accountable service
· Delivering premium online management tools offering real-time information and transparency into all hosting solutions
· Drawing on its extensive team of experienced engineers, with a wide and deep range of skills
· Leveraging its scale and business model to deliver all managed services at a lower TCO for customers
· Remaining professional, flexible and innovative at all times
· Becoming a part of the customer’s IT Support Team, not simply a supplier
Macquarie Hosting currently manages critical applications for companies including PBL Media, News Limited, Showbiz.com.au, WebJet and one of the world’s fastest growing social networking sites Habbo Hotel.
Macquarie Hosting is a division of ASX-listed Macquarie Telecom, a leading Australian and Asia Pacific supplier of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions – including voice, data, mobile and hosting. The business has experienced strong annual growth over the past 15 years.
