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Multibase aims to absorb cost increases wherever possible. Towards the end of each financial year we review our costs and prices based on March to March CPI figures, which this year are grouped at 4.2%, and the other costs that we face. Last year, we held prices down wherever possible and many of our services did not increase. This year, like many of our customers, we are facing significant cost pressures for technical services and supplies, and some of our prices will increase from 1 July 2008.
Development prices will increase from 1 July 2008, with our general programming rate moving to $160.00 per hour. For the normal range of development work, our prepaid discounts offer the best value, and are particularly economical for managing larger and ongoing projects. You can prepay development time in amounts of 20 hours or more for a 20% discount, making the effective hourly rate just $128.00.
The Support and Maintenance Contract price for straightforward maintenance of web sites by junior staff has increased slightly to $95.00 per hour. Contracted Support and Maintenance is appropriate for minor changes and updates rather than new development, and customers who require ongoing programming can use the prepaid system to achieve significant discounts.
Hosting prices will increase in line with the CPI from the first renewal after 1 July 2008. This year we are significantly increasing the security and capacity of our hosting environment, and we continue to offer the high levels of personalised service and readily available technical support that Multibase is known for.
We are also adding generous new allowances to our hosting plans, increasing storage space and data traffic limits, and continuing our fair policies for excess and usage limits.
Ecommerce pricing will remain unchanged in the new financial year. We have managed to retain current pricing levels across this service for the consecutive second year, and we continue to offer very competitive prices for transaction and service fees.
Volume discounts offer significant discounts for larger amounts of prepaid transactions, presenting the opportunity to achieve an even lower cost per transaction.
More information about the CPI can be found on the Australian Bureau of Statistics web site at http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6401.0.
Since 1983, Multibase's resilience and long term commitment has helped build the wealth of its customers' existing knowledge, business processes, systems and technology into solutions for better business performance.
A single source makes online business easy.
Multibase works with you to deliver robust, mission-critical solutions emphasising security, quality, scalability, and performance. Multibase can package a complete solution, including consultancy, development, system integration, hosting, ecommerce, and ongoing support.
Multibase is committed to realising the long-term value of your investment, and providing strategic support from design through to implementation and ongoing management.
Multibase's wide experience and expertise in different industries and technologies, plus quality, well-managed development and support teams means we can deliver your solution on schedule and within budget.
Multibase brings together the technical elements of your strategy, engaging our technical expertise to transform legacy systems, providing secure access to your data from anywhere, and much more.
Multibase hosts and manages applications, web sites and servers in our world-class data centre, and the longevity of our business demonstrates our commitment to the long-term support of your Internet system.
For more information about working with us, visit our web site to see how we map the 'the customer journey', email Multibase Customer Service or phone 02 9805 1911.
This year, Multibase is engaged in a program of development and enhancement to our ecommerce services to achieve the highest level of PCI-DSS certification. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a global benchmark for credit card payment systems such as Multibase's ePay service that is jointly developed by card industry cornerstones such as American Express, Mastercard Worldwide and Visa Inc.
The certification standard includes requirements for security management, policies and procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. To complete the certification process, all aspects of the service, including our entire network and internal processes, are audited to ensure that we meet the highest standards for security and data storage in the global payment card industry.
More information about the standard is available at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/.
Multibase's ePay service now underpins a range of difference ecommerce applications, including hand-held GPRS terminals and IVR as well as more traditional Internet ecommerce solutions such as shopping carts and catalogues.
Multibase continues to offer very competitive transaction prices, and our skill, experience and long-term resilience make us the perfect partner for your ecommerce project. Our prepaid development rates make it more affordable to start selling online, and if you already have a web site and prefer to use your own developers, we can assist your team to implement a payment solution using the ePay API to add credit card payments to your site.
More information about Multibase's ecommerce services is available on our web site.
To discuss how you can use ePay to grow your online business, please email Multibase Customer Service or phone 02 9805 1911.
Following the success of a pilot program launched in 2007, Multibase has been chosen as the hosting consortium partner for a major new online community initiative to be launched in the second half of this year.
To meet the challenges of providing secure storage for high volumes of sensitive, personal data, including complete replication for disaster recovery, we have embarked on a major network restructuring and segregation program to comply with rigorous requirements for the protection of the community participants' private information. The opportunity now exists for Multibase to capitalise on this investment in infrastructure, and use the new, more secure network to attract other large-scale hosting clients with requirements for high security and availability.
More information will be announced as we progress further into the project.
Commencing in the new financial year, Multibase's shared hosting plans will be boosted with new allowances for disk storage and data traffic. With greater economies of scale now available to the company, we are pleased to announce that our standard, business-level hosting plan will include 250Mb of storage plus 5Gb of data traffic. All plans will include similarly increased allowances, with custom options still available for specific hosting needs.
For more information about hosting with Multibase, visit our web site.
To enquire about hosting with Multibase, please email Multibase Customer Service or phone 02 9805 1911.
We can be contacted via email at customerservice@mbase.com.au, on the web at www.mbase.com.au, or by telephone on 02 9805 1911.
We're always willing to engage with your technology plans, answer any questions you have about your current products and services, or talk about upgrading to a higher level of service.