Rackspace Helps Businesses Find the Apps They Need with New AppMatcher

What Online Matchmaking Did for Love, Rackspace Hosting Does for Productivity, Matching Business Users with Relevant SaaS Apps

SAN ANTONIO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE:RAX), the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, today announced the launch of AppMatcher, the matchmaking engine that helps businesses quickly locate the apps they need for everything from accounting to project management and human resources. Users of AppMatcher will be able to provide details about their organization and job function, quickly review a variety of relevant apps, and consult comments from those that are already using those apps.

“Often times, people may have a good sense of what they want, but they don’t always know what else they may need. Sophisticated matchmaking adds tremendous value to the user experience by surfacing and satisfying those hidden needs.”

AppMatcher will feature a variety of applications starting with those hosted at Rackspace including AppRiver, Apptio, Boomi, HubSpot, Jobs2Web, Lighthouse1, Marketo and Xero.

Rackspace developed AppMatcher to do for business applications what online matchmakers do for singles – transforming the process of finding that perfect application match through a deep understanding of customer needs, predictive analytics and sophisticated matching algorithms. As one of the largest hosts of SaaS applications, hosting more than 1000 SaaS apps, the AppMatcher launch strengthens Rackspace’s leadership in the SaaS industry.

“It’s exciting to see the principles of technology-based matchmaking applied to a variety of industries,” said Joseph Essas, VP of Technology at eHarmony. “Often times, people may have a good sense of what they want, but they don’t always know what else they may need. Sophisticated matchmaking adds tremendous value to the user experience by surfacing and satisfying those hidden needs.”

The AppMatcher experience works as follows:

• AppMatcher uses profile and preference data to help SaaS firms and their potential subscribers find each other more quickly and is designed to provide a better search experience for companies seeking apps, and more qualified prospects for each SaaS application firm. In the first step, users answer four questions about their company size, industry, department and title. AppMatcher then identifies those that best meet the user’s needs, often including several that the user may not have known existed.
• AppMatcher “Locker” is the place on AppMatcher where a user can organize and review all of her SaaS applications, and introduce apps to others in different departments within the organization. After connecting her locker with co-workers, this portal becomes an online collaboration environment where the reviews and opinions of all application subscribers at the users’ firm are centrally located. As new SaaS applications match a user’s profile, they will appear in her locker as a suggested application.

AppMatcher is intended to provide a unique experience for both the SaaS application provider and those who use SaaS apps at companies of all sizes. For the first time in any app marketplace, SaaS application providers will have access to a dashboard of information regarding interest and activity levels, which can ultimately help drive sales through new subscribers and brand exposure.

“As a leading hosting provider for SaaS applications, AppMatcher is providing, not just to Rackspace customers but to the industry as a whole, access to business applications in one easy-to-use environment,” said Klee Kleber, senior vice president of Marketing and SaaS Hosting, Rackspace. “With SaaS apps increasingly becoming industry- and role-specific, this new site will not only help users find the apps they’re seeking, but also uncover great apps they would otherwise not know to search for.”

Details of AppMatcher were announced at Rackspace’s SaaS Summit held today in San Antonio, Texas.

For more information or to create a profile, please visit www.appmatcher.com.

About Rackspace Hosting

Rackspace Hosting is the world’s leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support (r) to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development, performance or market acceptance associated with our products or services, including AppMatcher; anticipated operational and financial benefits from the introduction of our products or services, including those associated with AppMatcher; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that expected benefits from our products and services may not materialize, along with other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2010, filed with the SEC on August 9, 2010. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.