DISTRICT CHIEF EXECUTIVE VISITS WEB HOST HETZNER ONLINE

Gunzenhausen – 1. January 2014

Hetzner Online AG was the purpose of a recent company visit by District Chief Executive Gerhard Wägemann and Business Development Manager Sabine Unterlandstaettner. 

In the presence of company founder Martin Hetzner and his authorized representatives, Stephan Konvickova and Günther Müller, as well as Marketing Manager Christian Fitz, the District Chief Executive was provided with an insight into the history of the company. An exciting journey which shows the remarkable development of Hetzner Online AG in recent years.

Martin Hetzner founded his then one-man web hosting enterprise in 1997 and it soon became apparent that demand for this area of business was strong. A success story was to ensue which in addition to numerous accolades was also accompanied by enormous expansion. The increasing demand for storage space and the rapid development of the Internet market led to the establishment of a first own data center just four years later. It was located in Nuremberg in 2001, as this location ensured the best connection to the fibre optic network. 

Following this development, the company was in a position to extend service so that the company developed into a professional web hosting service provider offering private and business clients high-performance hosting products as well as the necessary infrastructure to efficiently operate websites. In the past few years, the IT industry has become one of the most important and pioneering branches of technology. In addition to fibre optic networks, data centers in particular represent a central feature of the global Internet infrastructure and have become a focal point for data storage and analysis. 

In order to keep pace with this development, the next extensive investment in infrastructure ensued. A further larger data center park was established at the Falkenstein location which has at its disposal numerous favourable factors such as a fibre optic network and a good power supply. At the same time, this is the largest Hetzner Online location with over 100 employees. Next to web hosting and a variety of server offers the company also provides “Colocation“ facilities. Here, servers are provisioned by clients with the Hetzner Online infrastructure ensuring their efficient operation. 

The considerable enlargement in operations also led to a constant increase in administrative workload. So, it was only logical that the main office in Gunzenhausen would also need to undergo an overhaul. Therefore, in 2013 a building at Industriesstraße 25 in Gunzenhausen was procured to provide the 50 employees with sufficient space. The company has bolstered its headquarters in Gunzenhausen and made an investment in the district. The relocation is to take place in the spring this year. 

Hetzner Online AG has received several awards for its excellent service. The company has received the “Brand of the Year“ award in the web hosting category on several occasions. More recently in 2012, the company was an award winner in the “Bavaria's Best 50“ category, belonging to one of the 50 fastest growing enterprises in Bavaria. District Chief Executive Gerhard Wägemann praised these achievements. “It is a pleasure to have such a large and well-known company, with clients in more than 150 countries globally, located in the district,“ he emphasized. 

In spite of this positive development, Martin Hetzner is concerned about the future. Power costs, which account for almost 40% of the cost element data center operators have to bear, continue to rise as a result of various factors. The German Renewable Energy Act (EEG) bonus, the full sum of which Hetzner as a non-manufacturing company has to pay, places a great burden on the sector. According to Hetzner, it is not possible to operate competitively in Germany for this reason. This levy does not apply in other EU states, with the result that many fellow competitors have already moved data centers abroad leading to the emergence of increasingly unfair competition. Germany needs a strong Internet industry to enable safe data storage in accordance with German law for national enterprises, he stressed.