Alamo Community Colleges Awarded $4.7 Million to Provide Customized Training for Rackspace® Hosting

Graham Weston, Chairman, Rackspace; Chakib Chehadi, executive director, Workforce Solutions Alamo; Denver McClendon, chairman, Alamo Community Colleges; Lanham Napier, CEO, Rackspace; Ruth Jones McClendon, State Representative; Dr. Bruce H. Leslie, chancellor, Alamo Community Colleges

SAN ANTONIO - November 18, 2008 - Thanks to a $4.7 million grant announced at a press conference today, The Alamo Colleges, the largest and most respected provider of workforce training in Central and South Texas and the second largest community colleges system in Texas, will provide customized training in more than 200 cutting-edge programs for 4,000 current and new employees of Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE: RAX), the world’s leader and specialist in hosted IT services. A total of $784,000 of the grant will provide for state-of-the-art IT equipment to be used in the training, which will take place over the next four years at Northeast Lakeview College and at Rackspace. All of The Alamo Colleges will participate in the training.

“This project will afford The Alamo Colleges the opportunity to upgrade
its curriculum to meet the current needs of many employers in this dynamic industry, including Rackspace,” said Alamo Community Colleges’ Chancellor Dr. Bruce H. Leslie. “This is not just another job training project; it represents a sea change event that is advancing San Antonio’s economic lure, diversifying its industrial base and positioning our colleges to deliver a local workforce that Rackspace can recruit, rather than from out of state,” he added.

”This grant will provide technical training and development opportunities to Rackers, allowing us to add capacity in multiple areas of our business. We are incredibly grateful to the Texas Workforce Commission for providing us with this opportunity to invest in Rackers,” said Lanham Napier, president and CEO, Rackspace Hosting.

The training will provide certification in Comptia A+, Microsoft MCSA/MCSE (System Administrator/Engineer), Cisco CCNA, CCSP (Network Administrator/Security Professional, Oracle. Sun Java, CommVault, MySQL and many other in-demand programs.

A future goal of this relationship with Rackspace will be to work with The Alamo Colleges and area school districts to create a long-term pipeline of highly skilled IT professionals. This relationship will also help launch programs to enhance future curriculum offered by Rackspace University, Rackspace’s current internal educational department, by providing access to college credit courses and advanced certifications offered by The Alamo Colleges for Rackspace employees at their workplace. The grant is provided by the Skills Development Fund of the Texas Workforce Commission.

About The Alamo Colleges

The Alamo Colleges’ service area includes Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Kerr and Wilson counties. The Alamo Colleges —San Antonio College, St. Philip’s College, Palo Alto College, Northwest Vista College and Northeast Lakeview  College—now serve more than 102,000 students each year. For more information, visit our website at www.accd.edu.

About Rackspace Hosting

As the world’s leader and specialist in hosting, Rackspace Hosting is changing the way businesses worldwide buy IT. Rackspace delivers computing-as-a-service, integrating the industry’s best technologies into a flexible service offering, making computing more reliable and affordable. A trusted partner to companies of all sizes, Rackspace enables IT departments to be more effective. Rackspace is distinguished by its award-winning Fanatical Support®, furthering the company’s mission to be one of the world’s greatest service companies. Rackspace is recognized as one of FORTUNE Magazine’s 100 Best companies to work for, ranking number 32 on the 2008 list.  Rackspace's portfolio of hosted IT services includes managed hosting (www.rackspace.com), email hosting (www.mailtrust.com) and cloud hosting (www.mosso.com).  For more information on Rackspace Hosting, please visit www.rackspace.com or call 800-961-2888.