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A Web-Hosting Agent. Most of us wouldn't think of buying or selling a house without a real-estate agent, and we increasingly turn to mortgage brokers to find the best home loan. But have you ever thought of using an agent to find the best colocation or managed-services vendor? That's the business model of CanXCentral, a year-old Toronto firm.
I had the chance to speak today with Chris Ridabock Jr., CEO of CanXCentral, and to learn more about his business. Like a commercial real-estate agent, CanXCentral is paid a commission by the vendor, so as a web-hosting customer it costs you nothing. It makes sense for the vendor as well, since the commission paid to CanXCentral is in lieu of the commission that would be paid to in-house sales staff. Chris reports that the idea has been very well received by the vendors, so CanXCentral can offer a wide range of hosting choices--probably more than buyers can research on their own. There's another twist: Because the Canadian dollar is valued at only 2/3 of the U.S. dollar, CanXCentral can offer Canadian-based hosting to U.S. companies at a 30% savings. Are Canadian vendors as good as their U.S. counterparts? I can't say first-hand, but as a group, the U.S. vendors aren't all that great, and some good ones like IBM, have Canadian data centers.
Posted Wednesday, January 09, 2002 6:13:38 PM 
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