Managed Cloud Leader to Offer Services for Microsoft Productivity Suite

SAN ANTONIO - May 5, 2015 - Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX), the #1 managed cloud company, today announced that it will offer Fanatical Support® and premium managed services for Microsoft Office 365, a leading cloud business productivity solution. With two new offerings, Fanatical Support for Office 365 and Rackspace Managed Services for Office 365, customers can purchase multiple Office 365 services from Rackspace including migration assistance and tier-one support, as well as premium managed services for Office 365 licenses not originally purchased from Rackspace.

Rackspace support for Office 365 is the newest addition to the Cloud Office at Rackspace portfolio, which offers customers the flexibility to choose from a broad set of fully-managed business productivity tools delivered on a variety of technology platforms to help meet customers' communication and collaboration needs. Rackspace will resell and support six Office 365 plans with management services for SMB and mid-market customers including deployment and migration assistance, tier-one troubleshooting and prioritized Microsoft support escalations. Additionally, Rackspace will offer managed services for Office 365, including a dedicated support team, on Office 365 licenses purchased through Rackspace or directly from Microsoft for mid-market and enterprise customers.

Rackspace has supported Microsoft Exchange for more than eight years. This new announcement extends the relationship with Microsoft to support customers across the Office 365 suite who are looking for an increased level of support. According to Gartner, "as of 2Q14, only 10% of users (67 million) in the overall enterprise office market have moved to cloud office systems and most have focused on email, not the broad range of capabilities." However, "after slow growth from 2007 to 2013, cloud office system adoption is accelerating. It will reach 25% of the market's total potential by the end of 2017, 50% by 2020 and 90% by the market's 20th birthday in 2027."1

"As more businesses adopt cloud collaboration tools, they will need a trusted provider to help manage them, so they can focus on their core business," said John Engates, chief technology officer at Rackspace. "The launch of Rackspace support for Office 365 furthers Rackspace's commitment to deliver the workplace collaboration and productivity tools that customers need with the added value of Fanatical Support, so customers can avoid the pain of managing these tools themselves. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and four-time Hosting Partner of the Year, Rackspace is thrilled to further expand our relationship with Microsoft and continue to support applications and technology outside our own datacenters."

Rackspace support for Office 365 will include two solution offerings:

  • Fanatical Support® for Office 365™ - Rackspace will sell and offer tier-one support for six Office 365 business and enterprise plans including Office 365 Business Essentials, Business, Business Premium, ProPlus, Enterprise E1 and Enterprise E3. Customers will receive free Microsoft Exchange migrations and Fanatical Support from a team of Cloud Office specialists.
  • Rackspace® Managed Services for Office 365™ - Rackspace will offer a premium level of support and advisory services for mid-market and enterprise-level customers on top of Office 365 plans through either Rackspace or Microsoft. This level of managed support includes Exchange migrations, onboarding and deployment assistance and tier-one troubleshooting, plus Advisory Services from a dedicated account team to help configure Office 365 to best fit customers' unique business IT needs.

"Microsoft Office 365 is one of the world's most popular email and productivity solutions in the cloud, with a run rate of over $2.5 billion in 2014," said Aziz Benmalek, vice president, Hosting Service Provider business at Microsoft. "As a leading managed cloud company, Rackspace is well positioned to offer premium support for Office 365 so customers have more variety when deciding on the support level that best suits their business needs. We are pleased to see Rackspace continue to expand our longstanding collaboration following them joining the Microsoft Cloud OS Network in November and now adopting Office 365 into their Cloud Office suite."

Rackspace Office 365 offerings are currently in early access and available in the U.S. only. They will roll out internationally in the second half of 2015. This is the latest workplace collaboration tool in the Rackspace Cloud Office suite, which includes a variety of Rackspace, Microsoft and Google technologies like hosted Microsoft Exchange and Rackspace Email, Skype for Business and Microsoft SharePoint productivity tools, Office 365, and other workplace collaboration services, all backed by Fanatical Support. To learn more about Office 365 support at Rackspace, visit http://o365.rackspace.com.

1 Gartner, Hype Cycle for Content Management, 2014, 24 July 2014

About Rackspace

Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) is the #1 managed cloud company. Its technical expertise and Fanatical Support® allow companies to tap the power of the cloud without the pain of hiring experts in dozens of complex technologies. Rackspace is also the leader in hybrid cloud, giving each customer the best fit for its unique needs - whether on single- or multi-tenant servers, or a combination of those platforms. Rackspace is the founder of OpenStack®, the open-source operating system for the cloud. Based in San Antonio, Rackspace serves more than 300,000 business customers from data centers on four continents. www.rackspace.com

Forward Looking Statement

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 facts are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development, performance or market acceptance associated with Fanatical Support and Rackspace Managed Services for Office 365 offering; anticipated operational and financial benefits from Fanatical Support and Rackspace Managed Services for Office 365 offering; 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 Fanatical Support and Rackspace Managed Services for Office 365 may not materialize because this product and services are not generally accepted in the marketplace, which could occur due to certain factors including (i) a failure to market the product and services cost effectively, differentiate the product and services from competitive products or communicate differentiations effectively, (ii) the reliability, quality or compatibility associated with the product and services, (iii) changes in technology which adversely affect the product's benefit, (iv) slowdowns in the general economy or technology industry that impact consumer spending habits, (v) internal strategy decisions that impact the product; and (vi) other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting's Form 10-K for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2014, filed with the SEC on March 2, 2015. 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.

Media Contact:

Monica Jacob

210-312-6745

monica.jacob@rackspace.com

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