SingleHop Takes a Tandem Approach to Managed Services

Web hosting provider SingleHop has a new partner program for resellers looking to jump into providing a managed hosting service to their customers. Here’s a look.

The Chicago-based company has introduced Tandem, its first reseller program that provides all the bells and whistles of a managed hosting service, including a white-label control panel system for customers’ use. The program enables solution providers to control both the servers they resell to their customers and how their customers access those servers.

SingleHop has a groovy web interface called LEAP that is the basis for the white-label control panel. LEAP comes in both desktop and mobile interfaces, and enables the user to perform just about any function from viewing bandwidth usage by month and by year to disabling and enabling switch ports. LEAP was created using AJAX, which gives an intuitive feel to the interface, and was developed as a “webtop,” according to the company, to allow users to have multiple windows open simultaneously – helpful when viewing multiple accounts or performing multiple tasks in one account.

LEAP Mobile is equally robust, supporting iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Windows Mobile platforms. More features are available on the iPhone (surprise!), but all of the platforms support ticket management and invoicing features. Tandem customers will have access to all of the LEAP technologies, which also include a desktop toolbar and widget.

According to SingleHop, Tandem features an intelligent pricing system (re: discounted) and marketing assistance to provide resellers with all the data center and server information they need. The program is fully customizable, from the amount of server space purchased to customer access to the control panel and support.

A new player in the managed server space means there is still room for growth. The question is whether SingleHop can set itself apart from its competitors, which include such channel well-knowns as Verio and The Planet. The dearth of channel programs in the web hosting space, however, may bode well for SingleHop. Its LEAP interface looks pretty promising; one can hope the rest of the package holds up as well.

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