It’s the question that divides the nation… are you Mac or PC? Because as any self-respecting IT professional will tell you, you cannot be both.

One North East company has decided to celebrate the differences dividing the IT world by launching a rack space service dedicated to Macs.

ZebraHosts the Newcastle based datacentre has been providing its server hosting solutions and collocation services to PC users for over five years, but has recently noticed an opportunity to provide its expertise to a new market.

"Mac operators are disciples to Apple Technology" explains strategic account manager Belinda Kent, "due to the capabilities of the Macs, design and creative businesses are increasingly converting to 100% Mac use but despite this we found that rack space dedicated to Macs and backed up by expert technicians is simply not available."

The creative market is an important one for ZebraHosts; almost totally reliant on IT systems and hardware it is an industry coming of age, growing out of its old IT systems and looking for something, bigger, better, faster and in many cases externally hosted to maximise efficiencies.

Continued Belinda, "Our research in the marketplace discovered that PC is a dirty word in many of these agencies and so naturally when considering contacting a company for IT support and collocation solutions, they want a company who understands Macs and offers dedicated support and space to Mac servers."

"As reliance on server based systems increases, whether that is Macs or PC’s, businesses are no longer prepared to battle with slow connectivity, poor levels of uptime, unreliable data storage and weak networking. And of course, as usage increases these businesses become even more aware of the catastrophic repercussions of losing core data."

ZebraHosts has launched its Mac only rack space this January and is already receiving enquiries from company’s keen to utilise the unique service - which it believes is the first in the North East.

And of course, Zebra will continue to offer rack space solutions to PC users as it has been doing successfully for over five years.

“Our collocation facility offers a range of benefits to both Mac and PC users, from the peace of mind of knowing we have full power back up facilities in place which guarantee 99.99% uptime even in the event of a major local or regional power cut, to optimum security and 24/7 technical support.“ Said Belinda.