The Planet: Fiscal 4Q09 Financial Results

The Planet, in IT hosting, discussed its results for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009. The Planet provides quarterly updates to its customers, business partners and prospects with information relative to new initiatives and its progress.

“We ended the fourth quarter and the year with increased revenue and EBITDA beyond 30%, despite the tough economic conditions,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Douglas J. Erwin. “During the quarter, we reorganized our sales and support organizations to best serve our various customer segments, and we declared 2010 the Year of Customer Experience. In that regard, we recently announced certain new offerings, and lowered our prices for bandwidth and various server lines. We also have kicked off numerous training and customer service programs in an effort to deliver the best customer experience in the industry. To deliver across the board, operational excellence is critical. While our customer satisfaction rankings remain at all-time record highs, we will continue to make changes to improve our performance and deliver the products and services our customers require for their businesses."

“We had another record revenue year and a solid quarter,” said Chief Financial Officer Kevin Klausmeyer. “Deal sizes continue to increase, and the managed hosting business is gaining more traction. Our cash flows remain very strong, which has resulted in a powerful balance sheet, with our net debt at its lowest level in the past three years. In 2010, we plan to make significant investments in our customer-facing systems, our network, our Virtual Dedicated Server offering and our data center infrastructure.”

Fourth Quarter Highlights

• Complex Infrastructure Growth: The company’s complex infrastructure solutions, which include virtual and private racks, experienced more than 30% growth year-over-year, making them the fastest-growing products in the portfolio.
• Partner Program Addition: Ayuda Networks, a highly regarded leader in IT infrastructure connectivity strategy and services, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., joined the company’s Partner Plus program.
• Cloud Speaking Engagements: Rob Walters, director of product management, represented The Planet as a panelist at the Cloud Computing Expo and Conference. Todd Mitchell, general manager for the company’s Dedicated Hosting and Global Services business, delivered an address on cloud computing at the fourth annual cPanel customer conference.
• New Storage Area Network: The company announced the availability of the Dell PowerVault MD3000i, a high-performance storage area network (SAN) disk array. Ideal for multi-server environments such as virtual and private racks, the company’s fastest-growing solutions, the MD3000i offers a cost-effective and scalable storage solution.
• Nehalem Servers: The Xeon 3450, based on the Dell PowerEdge R210 platform and loaded with Intel’s next-generation Nehalem microarchitecture, became the third and most powerful server in the company’s fleet.
• Microsoft OS Added to Portfolio: The company added the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 to its product line-up, making it available to all dedicated hosting customers.
• Microsoft WebsiteSpark Membership: Supporting its SMB customers, the company joined Microsoft’s WebsiteSpark program, which provides small Web development and design firms with free Microsoft licenses for the latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server, key tools for building and designing rich Web sites.
• Texas IPv6 Conference: At its Houston-based headquarters, The Planet hosted and served as a Gold Sponsor for the Texas IPv6 Task Force, which attracted more than 100 participants. Also participating as Gold Sponsors were NTT America, Global Crossing and ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers).