The Planet Offers Free Servers to Software Developers, Technology Entrepreneurs
Plan designed to help create jobs, fight unemployment
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The Planet, an IT hosting service, has launched Sand Castle, a program designed to eliminate technology costs and help individuals and entrepreneurs with great ideas and visions. For one year, The Planet will provide one server to individual developers and entrepreneurs looking to develop new applications and products. The Sand Castle program includes up to 500 servers.
“While there are indicators of a turnaround, the economy cannot recover without job creation, and we continue to hear the recovery will not automatically mean new jobs,” said The Planet’s chairman and CEO Douglas J. Erwin.
According to the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, small businesses generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years and hire 40 percent of high-tech workers, including scientists, engineers, and computer programmers.
“With eight data centers, we’re in a position to offer a single server to 500 individuals who want to start their own businesses. These 500 servers could create 500 jobs, and then we’ll have taken one small step to pay it forward and be part of the solution.
The Sand Castle Dell servers are equipped with Dual Xeon processors, a 146GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, 10Mb-per-second of unmetered bandwidth, and loaded with the CentOS 5 operating system.
Qualifying credentials are straightforward: Individuals outline their vision for a software application or Web-based design service. They must produce a new domain within six months of acceptance into the program and may not currently be a customer of The Planet.
Sand Castle project criteria and an application are available at www.theplanet.com/sand-castle.