AIT marks 10 yr anniversary with first-ever one-million dollar dealership deal

HostReview.com
Wednesday, May 17, 2006; 02:24 AM

Fayetteville, NC -- Ten years ago this month, AIT (http://www.AIT.com) signed up a Burlington, North Carolina card shop as its first web hosting customer. AIT has marked that anniversary with its first-ever one-million dollar dealership deal. It happened in the Pittsburgh office, and includes a comprehensive systems integration project to benefit an economically depressed part of the community. "The dealership program extends beyond the traditional AIT product line, creating opportunities by bringing together the IT services and infrastructure that organizations and businesses need," says AIT Chief Executive Officer Clarence Briggs.

In the last several months, AIT has also established dealerships in Chicago, Atlanta, and Charlotte, along with Pittsburgh. Another dozen or so will open over the course of the year. In a broad sense, dealerships are the next phase of the company's reseller program, which carried AIT from the garage in Briggs' home to a 93,000 square foot call and data center. Entrepreneurs like Jim Hatley capitalized on the program to build sustainable businesses. "The program opened opportunities for my web design company to expand relationships with customers from one-time transactions to recurring revenue," said Hatley.

Dealerships carry the reseller program an additional step further by presenting AIT's line of virtual products and services in a physical storefront. "This is a best-case scenario for customers - the industrial-grade infrastructure and resources of a global service provider and local people with a local address and local phone number for support," said Ken Howard, one of the principals of the Chicago dealership.

Nearly 200,000 domains later, AIT has evolved from the early days as the nature of the hosting business has changed, focusing on the customer, introducing new tools and services to satisfy consumer demand, and funding initiatives through its own growth. "Ten years in the Internet industry speaks for itself; so many of our former competitors have long since disappeared," said Clarence Briggs, AIT's Chief Executive Officer. "And our growth has happened without outside investment. At times it has been difficult to ignore the siren's call of VC backing, but you always have to ask what strings come with taking someone else's money."