When choosing a company to host your dedicated server or managed server, it makes sense to look beyond the headline pricing figures which are often quoted on their websites or in their advertisements. Last week, we had a sales enquiry from someone who said that, if we matched a competitor’s price for a linux dedicated server, we could have the deal that day.

When we went to the particular competitor’s website, we found that there was no telephone number to call for pre-sales information or advice. Worse, when we tried to find a number to call for post-sales technical support, there wasn’t one neither ! Not only that, but they only supported access to your dedicated server via their proprietary web-based control panel. You can get root access if you like, but they’ll immediately withdraw all forms of support from you at that point!

As is often said, if something’s cheap(er), its cheap(er) for a reason  – sure, there will be companies out there who are happy with the aforementioned levels of “service” but, when faced with a price that looks great value, also consider that it might just be cheap.