Xtrabox much in demand by Greeks

WHEN Andrew Ogilvie, the owner of a new Scottish internet service provider (ISP), said he could drastically reduce the cost for e-businesses upgrading to a dedicated server with his range of new toaster-sized devices, he did not expect his first customer to come from 1800 miles away.

Ogilvie's Hillington Innovation Centre-based company, Xtraordinary Hosting, launched its ISP service of tiny servers, called the Xtrabox, at the beginning of March, and recently it attracted the Greek company, Ioannina@-Xtreme, which is based in the city of Ioannina.

Ogilvie said his tiny servers offer just as much memory, speed and security as any industry-sized server for around £300 a month, about a third cheaper than the standard offering.

The cheaper rate is possible, he said, because the Xtrabox is about a third smaller than standard servers, and ISPs must rent shelf space by size at secure web-hosting hubs, such as the ScoLocate data centre in Edinburgh.

Ogilvie said: "This is a very exciting breakthrough for us, allowing us as a new-start business to compete with larger, longer-established ISPs from day one."

He added that Ioannina@-Xtreme had discovered Xtraordinary Hosting after first scouring the internet to find a "dedicated server that met its requirements of speed, stability, reliability and support in Greece and US."

Mark Smith, The Herald 6th May 2002