October 6, 2007 (HOSTSEARCH.COM) Managed hosting provider Rackspace has bought Webmail.us, it was reported recently. Terms of the purchase were not revealed. Webmail.us provides email hosting services and according to the companys website manages in excess of 600,000 email accounts for 23,000 small- to medium-sized businesses.
Rackspace has hosted the Webmail.us email hosting infrastructure for some time and the companys is Webmail.us biggest reseller. According to CEO, Mr. Pat Matthews, the sale of Webmail.us was to ensure the company was positioned as the leader in the area of online email. "The market is really going to open up, leaders are going to emerge, and followers are going to fall behind," he is reported as saying.
Webmail.us is seen as being representative of a Web 2.0 success built on a subscription model. In my opinion, this is the soundest model although in many cases it presents challenges with the exponential user base growth some of the free companies experience, added Mr. Matthews. But I think most of the companies I just mentioned are indeed trying to build businesses, not features to flip."