Ninefold strikes back in battle for start-ups

Imitates Rackspace's free hosting offer.

Australian cloud computing provider Ninefold has fired the latest shot in a growing battle for the start-up, announcing a scheme identical to multinational rival Rackspace offering start-ups $24,000 worth of cloud computing services and storage.

Under Ninefold's Cloud Booster Program, start-ups approved by Australian incubators Pollenizer and Startmate would be offered free cloud computing and storage worth $2000 per month for a year.

The program also offers free technical sales consultation to establish the service. In return, Ninefold has asked the start-ups to spruik the cloud offering with guest posts on the provider's blog.

Rackspace began offering an identical scheme to start-ups tied to Pollenizer last month, also worth $2000 per month. Rackspace had offered similar deals to US-based venture capital funds.

Ninefold countered its competitor's offer with hosting out of the provider's Australian-based data centres, which it argued would provide lower latency and faster bandwidth speeds than Rackspace's Hong Kong data centre.

The start-up space has proved an increasingly volatile space for cloud computing providers. Amazon Web Services' global chief technology officer Werner Vogels earmarked start-ups in Australia - and particularly Melbourne - as a key focus of the cloud giant's expansion plans into Asia Pacific.