RALEIGH, NC, July 29, 2010 – Hosted Solutions, the East Coast’s premier provider of enterprise-class managed hosting solutions, announced that Percept Research, a worldwide source for high-quality marketing research and consulting services in both the commercial and academic sectors, has selected Hosted Solutions to deliver a full range of managed hosting services. 

The companies said that Hosted Solutions is providing a dedicated server solution for Percept Research, which includes remotely operating the company’s information security and storage platforms, as well as running a virtualized dedicated application server from Hosted Solutions’ secure SAS-70 Type II data center in Raleigh.  The Raleigh center is one of five such faclities operated by Hosted Solutions along the East Coast.  The services allow Percept to better concentrate on its core capabilities, and spend less time on IT administration.

“We want to focus on building our business rather than our infrastructure,” said Brian Mahoney, Percept Research’s chief executive officer.  “While we conduct research on several different levels, 85 percent of what we do is web-based.  We needed to work with a trusted partner.”  Mahoney noted that one of his company’s clients is a Fortune 50 enterprise, for whom Percept Research conducts between five and six thousand customer satisfaction surveys each month.  “We consider their brand to be sacrosanct.  If there’s a problem, it reflects on them, not us.  Downtime and problems are not an option.”

In addition, Mahoney said that Percept’s “MBA Lifecycle” consultancy, delivering benchmarking assessments specifically tailored to schools offering graduate management degrees, required a consistent level of service as well, since the company works with more than 200 universities and 300 MBA programs worldwide.  He said Percept’s previous provider was unable to handle the enormous global scope of his company’s services; “It got to the point where one of the world’s largest business schools was unable to reach us by email, because the provider had blocked incoming emails from their country.  They had to send us a fax.  This was not acceptable for anyone,” Mahoney added.

Mahoney and Percept Research took advantage of Hosted Solutions’ “Hi-Touch” customized approach, in which Hosted Solutions experienced technical staff helped them implement a design meeting their specific needs, giving Percept the specific blend of reach, technology and reliability the company requires.   Hosted Solutions also helped Percept Research smoothly manage the data center migration from the previous provider in less than a day, with no issues.

“Percept Research is a perfect example that even smaller firms have big clients and substantial responsibilities,” said Kip Turco, Hosted Solutions’ chief operating officer.  “They needed, and we were able to provide, a company that won’t quit on them, services that deliver at a fraction of the cost of doing it themselves, and people who understand their future requirements and are ready to map out a pathway that will help them easily manage their growth.”

About Hosted Solutions
Hosted Solutions is the East Coast’s premier provider of enterprise-class managed hosting solutions.  Its high quality data center and managed hosting services, including a dedicated server offering, managed colocation and its exclusive Stratus Trusted Cloud™suite , maintain and protect customers’ mission-critical IT systems and applications, enabling them to reduce operating costs, lower the risk of downtime, focus on core competencies, and achieve their top business objectives. The company operates five SAS 70 Type II certified data centers in Boston MA, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC, and Cary NC, providing best-of-breed data center operations with hardened physical infrastructure, the highest level of security.  It also offers a complete managed services portfolio, including enterprise storage, network, OS management, middleware server management, DBA services, security and disaster recovery.  Hosted Solutions is backed by Boston-based private equity firm ABRY Partners. 

About Percept Research
Percept Research provides high quality marketing research and consulting services with cost-effective approaches. Based in Charlotte, NC, Percept Research offers a large variety of market research and data management methodologies uniquely tailored to the needs of its clients. Whether an individual project or a large-scale research program, its flexible solutions meet a wide variety of research needs, ranging from traditional data collection to cutting-edge Internet solutions.  

Percept Research is a global leader in conducting higher education market research.  The firm also provides MBA program benchmark assessments with its MBA Lifecycle Survey Suite.

For more information:

Noreen Allen
919.882.3048
Hosted Solutions
nallen@hostedsolutions.com

Steve Friedberg
610.518.7474
MMI Communications
steve@mmicommunications.net