Rackspace Hosting : MobileForceField Uses Rackspace Managed Cloud to Help Defeat Cyber-Bullying

LONDON, UK -- (Marketwired) -- 10/14/14 -- Rackspace®, the #1 managed cloud company, today announced that MobileForceField, an innovative startup behind the world's first proactive child safety app, has selected a Rackspace Hybrid Cloud to power all of its websites.

MobileForceField is an innovative British company formed in 2013 with a unique patent pending product, an app, which steps in before a child receives bullying messages, inappropriate images or visits unsuitable apps and websites, helping keep them safe from harm. In addition to this, the application is one of the first which uses geofencing technology to monitor the whereabouts of the child and helps ensure they are kept away from uninviting locations.

MobileForceField dismissed using an unmanaged cloud infrastructure in an attempt to keep costs as low as possible, as it knows that these services would not meet the three key requirements it had which were scalability, customer service (load speed) and dedicated expertise. At this point, it turned to a Rackspace managed cloud service which covers each of these top priorities.

The startup elected not to employ the extra resource to manage its IT infrastructure in-house, so instead it opted for Rackspace managed cloud services which provide 24/7/365 support from a team of specialists. This allows the company to make best use of their core skills and work with charities, schools and universities to help protect young people by focusing on education and understanding for those who work with them rather than assigning extra resource to managing the performance of its websites.

"As a team of fathers, all of whom are enterprise IT professionals, we only considered working with the best partners globally to deliver our child safety app to parents," said Matt Archer, Managing Director, MobileForceField. "The great level of expertise, scalability and Fanatical Support® that Rackspace can offer means that we are saving money, and time resources while delivering the best experience to our website visitors. This is helping us achieve our ultimate goal of offering parents an effective way of keeping their children safe when using a smartphone or tablet."

Rackspace is supporting both the main MobileForceField website which is used for marketing purposes and the portal where parents log in to review activity on the device, and safeguard their young ones from inappropriate content. It's crucial that a scalable infrastructure was in place so that the spike in traffic to these sites could be easily handled when the solution was launched in the UK on 2nd October.

The Hybrid Cloud operates as a unified platform, which is linked by a single network that's powered by RackConnect® to help ensure optimum performance, resilience and enhanced security. The solution incorporates both private and public clouds to provide the agility to accommodate growth, and dedicated servers, to host its database applications.

"We've been working with MobileForceField for about a year now to make sure that it has the right tools and support in place so that everything runs smoothly for the launch and beyond," said Jeff Cotten, Managing Director, International at Rackspace. "For a company with a dedicated mission focused on ensuring the safety of children through an online platform, having a resilient website is vital. We are excited to offer a combination of great technology reinforced with highly responsive customer service and technical expertise to support MobileForceField and its customers throughout the world."

The app is available now on Android devices and Rackspace will provide hosting support for the tool being launched on the Apple App Store which is a central part of MobileForceField's future plans. Further expansion into the Australian, Canadian and US markets is another top priority for the company moving forward, and necessitates their requirement for a global managed cloud leader.

Note to editors
The preventative protection capabilities of the MobileForceField tool are what makes it a 'world's first' product. The tool identifies content being sent to the child that could be potentially harmful and places it in an online holding area that can only be accessed by parents. This allows them to either accept the content and allow it to be accessed on the child's phone, or reject it and prevent any harm that would have been caused. This process takes place without the child being aware of it. For more information visit the MobileForceField website.

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 company 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. Headquartered in San Antonio, Rackspace serves more than 200,000 business customers from data centres on four continents. It ranks #29 on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For and #26 in the Sunday Times Best Companies. For more information, visit http://www.rackspace.co.uk/

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 fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development, performance or operational results related to any particular customer or customers of our customers associated with our hosting solutions; any other statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include issues relating to the performance of a customer's configuration caused by forces outside of the control of Rackspace; changes in the economy, technological and competitive factors, regulatory factors, and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2014, filed with the SEC on August 11, 2014. 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.

Rackspace
Peter Beck
442087344016
Peter.Beck@rackspace.co.uk

Source: Rackspace Hosting