The Planet was a privately held
dedicated server
A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have f ...
company based in Texas. In May 2006, the company merged with Everyone's Internet, which used the EV1 Servers brand. In 2010, they merged with
SoftLayer
IBM Cloud, (formerly known as Bluemix) is a set of cloud computing services for business offered by the information technology company IBM.
Services
As of 2021, IBM Cloud contains more than 170 services including compute, storage, networki ...
. All services provided by both companies were then operated under the SoftLayer name.
History
The Planet's support system was called Orbit and was located at ''orbit.theplanet.com''. Prior to the merger, The Planet operated under several different brands. They included: "Server Matrix", which served the low-price end of the market; "Total Control", which featured servers with complete remote control, such as
Dell DRAC
The Dell Remote Access Controller, or DRAC, is an out-of-band management platform on certain Dell servers. The platform may be provided on a separate expansion card, or integrated into the main board; when integrated, the platform is referred to a ...
and Remote Console capabilities;
Orbit was the main way customers knew they were dealing with The Planet as a company rather than with one of the different brands they operated. The Planet then sold servers almost exclusively through their website rather than different brands which had been unified into their website.
On November 10, 2010, GI Partners announced that the merger of The Planet and SoftLayer was effective.
On November 16, 2010, The Planet was rebranded SoftLayer as part of the merger.
On June 4, 2013,
IBM announced its acquisition of SoftLayer.
Everyone's Internet
Everyone's Internet was originally a
Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
-based
internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
. It was formed on October 6, 1998 by
Robert A. Marsh, Roy Marsh III, and Randy Williams. Its service was available nationwide.
Since 2000, Everyone's Internet's focus shifted toward Web hosting through its EV1 Servers subsidiary. This company was a
dedicated server
A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have f ...
hosting market. At its peak in 2006, EV1 Servers hosted over 30,000 servers.
In May 2006, private equity firm
GI Partners
GI Partners is a leading upper middle market private equity firm based in San Francisco, California.
Description
Founded in 2001, GI Partners is a private investment firm with over 100 employees with offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago ...
bought a controlling investment in Everyone's Internet. At the same time, Everyone's Internet announced that it was merging with The Planet, in which GI Partners had invested.
The CEO of EV1 Servers was Doug Erwin, from GI Partners, after they gained control of EV1 Servers.
In October 2006, Everyone's Internet announced that it would stop providing
dial-up Internet access
Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...
starting November 12 and sold their dialup portion of the company to
PeoplePC
PeoplePC is an Internet service provider owned by EarthLink.
History
PeoplePC was founded by Nick Grouf, Max Metral and David Waxman, and launched in the United States in October 1999. It bundled personal computers with internet service and ac ...
, another dialup Internet service provider. Some users were upset because PeoplePC requires a dialer, which does not work on all operating systems, and therefore opted to move to other Internet service providers.
As of January 2007 the EV1 name was dropped following the merger of The Planet and EV1.
EV1 and SCO licensing controversy
On March 1, 2004, EV1Servers.Net announced it had licensed
SCO Group
The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the o ...
's alleged intellectual property, saying that it was looking to offer its customers stability in the wake of SCO's protracted battle with the open source community. However, the deal was perceived by Linux users as using a licensing deal to support SCO Group's lawsuit against Linux. On March 25, 2004,
Netcraft
Netcraft is an Internet services company based in Bath, Somerset, England. The company provides cybercrime disruption services across a range of industries.
History
Netcraft was founded by Mike Prettejohn. The company provides web server and ...
reported EV1 had lost 1,080 Web sites in the previous 30 days. Robert Marsh, CEO of Everyones Internet, said that although EV1 had lost some hosting business since the deal, it was not out of line with the number of sites EV1 loses in a typical month.
A Utah court document filed on April 5, 2006, revealed that Robert Marsh, co-founder and CEO of EV1, was misled by SCO's Philip Langer's claims when making the deal, and that EV1 paid $800,000 for the license.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Planet Internet Services
Internet service providers of the United States
Web hosting