Gawkwire: Web Hosting and Internet News Resource

Colocation Web Hosting Firm, iWeb Group, Presents at RBC Capital Markets Event

2008-10-31T12:00:00-04:00

Quebec, Canada - (The Hosting News) Internet hosting infrastructure provider, iWeb Group Inc., and subsidiary of iWeb Technologies, was recently invited to be the first presentation of the "Growth in Managed and Internet Services'' session at the RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference.

Bernard Dahl, iWeb's Director of Communications and Public Relations presented investors with iWeb's perspectives on the current state of Internet services at the conference, which is being held at the MaRS Centre in Toronto.

Held at the MaRS Centre, Toronto, Ontario, the event featured leaders in the technology finance industry sector, with discussions of business strategies and outlooks from all of the participating companies.

RBC Capital Markets is the corporate and investment banking arm of RBC and the 12th largest investment bank in the world >(Bloomberg, April 2008). RBC Capital Markets is active globally in fixed income, foreign exchange, infrastructure finance, metals, mining and energy. RBC's international fixed income and treasury businesses are managed from London, which is the centre of a 24-hour trading platform with major hubs in Toronto, New York and Sydney. The company is part of a leading provider of financial services, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Operating since 1869, RBC has more than US$625 billion in assets and one of the highest credit ratings of any financial institution - Moody's Aaa and Standard and Poor's AA-.

Recently, iWeb restructured its management team, to include Martin Leclair, iWeb co-founder, as President of Products and Technology. Marc Guindon has become Executive Vice-President of Resources, and Philip Tousignant was appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Company, a function previously occupied by Marc Guindon.

Mr. Leclair, who is actively involved in the evolution and development of new technologies within the Company, becomes President of Products and Technology ? a role which will enable him to further strengthen iWeb's position as a leader in the IP infrastructure hosting industry.
By becoming Executive Vice-President of Resources, Marc Guindon will be responsible for material, financial and human resources; the three elements whose recent and future growth will be directly linked to the success of the Company, according to Martin Leclair, co-founder of iWeb.

Newly appointed to the role of CFO, Philip Tousignant was previously Corporate Controller at iWeb. Internal processes have improved consistently since Philip joined iWeb in May of 2007, particularly in the presentation of financial information, indicated Eric Chouinard, President and CEO of iWeb. Mr. Tousignant, who holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Sherbrooke, occupied various financial functions at Bombardier and Avestor prior to his arrival at iWeb.

iWeb's management team also includes Eric Chouinard, President and CEO, Sylvain Leclair, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, Hugo Denommee, Vice-President of Development and Automation and Cyrille Mertes, Vice-President of Global IT infrastructure.

Many changes are also underway within the Customer Service departments, who have recently filled new positions, including: Director of Client Management, Project Manager, Continuous Improvement as well as Director, Managed Services.

The company attained ranking among Profit Magazine's top 100 Canadian companies, based on revenue growth over the past 5 years. From 2002 to 2007, the company's revenues have gone from 1.35 million to 9.82 million as of October 1st 2007, an increase of 627%; enough for iWeb to make its entry into the 100th position on the annual ranking. The PROFIT 100 is the annual ranking which rates the top 100 Canadian companies based on the percentage of their revenue growth over a 5-year span. Produced by the business magazine PROFIT, 2008 marks the 20th edition of the ranking.

iWeb is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V : IWB), and is one of the largest Canadian providers of Internet hosting services and IT infrastructure. With three secure data centers, all in Montreal, iWeb has carved out an enviable position on the international scene with more than 60% of its revenues from abroad. Founded in 1996 in Montreal, iWeb has recently completed a $22M financing agreement with investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. iWeb now has over 120 full-time employees and more than 17 000 customers in 145 countries.

To learn more, please visit: www.iweb.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/colocation_web_hosting_firm_iweb_group_presents_at_rbc_capital_m.html

iWeb Group Featured at RBC Capital Markets Event

2008-10-30T03:09:00-04:00

Quebec, Canada - (The Hosting News) iWeb Group Inc. and subsidiary of iWeb Technologies, was recently invited to be the first presentation of the "Growth in Managed and Internet Services session at the RBC Capital Markets Growth Conference event.

Bernard Dahl, iWeb's Director of Communications and Public Relations presented investors with iWeb's perspectives on the current state of Internet services at the conference, which is being held at the MaRS Centre in Toronto.

Held at the MaRS Centre, Toronto, Ontario, the event featured leaders in the technology finance industry sector, with discussions of business strategies and outlooks from all of the participating companies.

RBC Capital Markets is the corporate and investment banking arm of RBC and the 12th largest investment bank in the world >(Bloomberg, April 2008). RBC Capital Markets is active globally in fixed income, foreign exchange, infrastructure finance, metals, mining and energy. RBC's international fixed income and treasury businesses are managed from London, which is the centre of a 24-hour trading platform with major hubs in Toronto, New York and Sydney. The company is part of a leading provider of financial services, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Operating since 1869, RBC has more than US$625 billion in assets and one of the highest credit ratings of any financial institution - Moody's Aaa and Standard and Poor's AA-.

Recently, iWeb restructured its management team, to include Martin Leclair, iWeb co-founder, as President of Products and Technology. Marc Guindon has become Executive Vice-President of Resources, and Philip Tousignant was appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Company, a function previously occupied by Marc Guindon.

Mr. Leclair, who is actively involved in the evolution and development of new technologies within the Company, becomes President of Products and Technology ? a role which will enable him to further strengthen iWeb's position as a leader in the IP infrastructure hosting industry.
By becoming Executive Vice-President of Resources, Marc Guindon will be responsible for material, financial and human resources; the three elements whose recent and future growth will be directly linked to the success of the Company, according to Martin Leclair, co-founder of iWeb.

Newly appointed to the role of CFO, Philip Tousignant was previously Corporate Controller at iWeb. Internal processes have improved consistently since Philip joined iWeb in May of 2007, particularly in the presentation of financial information, indicated Eric Chouinard, President and CEO of iWeb. Mr. Tousignant, who holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Sherbrooke, occupied various financial functions at Bombardier and Avestor prior to his arrival at iWeb.

iWeb's management team also includes Eric Chouinard, President and CEO, Sylvain Leclair, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, Hugo Denommee, Vice-President of Development and Automation and Cyrille Mertes, Vice-President of Global IT infrastructure.

Many changes are also underway within the Customer Service departments, who have recently filled new positions, including: Director of Client Management, Project Manager, Continuous Improvement as well as Director, Managed Services.

The company attained ranking among Profit Magazine's top 100 Canadian companies, based on revenue growth over the past 5 years. From 2002 to 2007, the company's revenues have gone from 1.35 million to 9.82 million as of October 1st 2007, an increase of 627%; enough for iWeb to make its entry into the 100th position on the annual ranking. The PROFIT 100 is the annual ranking which rates the top 100 Canadian companies based on the percentage of their revenue growth over a 5-year span. Produced by the business magazine PROFIT, 2008 marks the 20th edition of the ranking.

iWeb is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V : IWB), and is one of the largest Canadian providers of Internet hosting services and IT infrastructure. With three secure data centers, all in Montreal, iWeb has carved out an enviable position on the international scene with more than 60% of its revenues from abroad. Founded in 1996 in Montreal, iWeb has recently completed a $22M financing agreement with investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. iWeb now has over 120 full-time employees and more than 17 000 customers in 145 countries.

To learn more, please visit: www.iweb.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/iweb_group_featured_at_rbc_capital_markets_event.html

Media3 Offers Free Hosting, for Anniversary

2008-10-30T02:59:00-04:00

Pembroke, Massachusetts - (Website Hosting Directory) Media3 Technologies has launched hosting plans centered around its celebration of 14 years in service. The company is offering free web hosting for a 3 month period, on all shared accounts for hosting.

Because the company is committed to earning the business of new customers for the long term, the firm is confident that clients will remain with the company after the thre month period has ended. The cost for 3 months is $0.00 regardless of which plan you choose and the setup fee is $0.00 We stand 100% behind what we sell (and what we giveaway).

The only requirement, besides adhering to our standard service agreement, is that the domain name associated with the account is registered or transferred and resolves to the Media3 assigned IP number within 14 days. No commitments are required, and clients are free to cancel at anytime. The offer is good for all new Media3 hosting accounts. Existing customers wishing to add a a new account under this promotion may do so as long as it is not for a domain name that is already hosted by Media3 under an existing hosting agreement.

All Media3 accounts include technical support by phone and ticket system. Free accounts under this promotion receive the same World-Class service that our customers have come to expect.

Media3 is a Premier Network Solutions Partner and provides complete domain name registration services (standard registrar fees apply) as well as complete assistance with the transfer of your existing domain name. Most new registrations and modifications are made the same day.

After 3 months, clients can continue to host sites under it's current plan, upgrade, downgrade or cancel and will be billed quarterly for all hosting charges after the promotion period.

Headquartered in Pembroke, MA, Media3 Technologies, LLC is a private web and application hosting provider. Founded in 1995 , we have grown into one of the largest web and application hosting companies in the world due in large part to our staff's commitment to quality customer service.

To learn more, please visit: www.media3.net.

Assess reseller web hosting plans and reseller hosting firms.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/media3_offers_free_hosting_for_anniversary.html

Heritage Web Solutions, Spotlighted by Economic Report Show

2008-10-29T17:00:00-04:00

Deerfield Beach, Florida - (The Hosting News) Heritage Web Solutions will be featured in an upcoming episode of The Economic Report's Business and Technology series on The Power of the Internet Supporting the 21st Century Business Environment, as part of the show.

The Internet has revolutionized the ways businesses market themselves. It is essential for businesses, both large and small, to have an effective web presence. A company's website essentially serves as their electronic store front, communicating the company's identity to website visitors.

Brad Stone, Managing Partner, Heritage Web Solutions remarked, ''As a global community, we are evolving into a technology-based world. Rarely we pay cash or write a check anymore. More of our purchases are made online, or at least we research online before making a purchasing decision. Our checking, savings and credit card accounts are maintained and paid for online. Our socializing has moved to FaceBook, YouTube and MySpace. Our communications are emailed, texted or Skyped. Breaking news can now be fed instantly via RSS feeds to our computers or cell phones instead of waiting for the six o'clock news. The Internet is very much a main part of human society today.''

Today, there are approximately 970 million internet users thus making internet marketing the most effective way to appeal to customers from around the world. Websites overcome the limitations between countries and continents thus making a company international. Having a website also means that a business is open and reachable at any time and allows for quick customer response time.

But, it isn't as simple as just setting up a website. The only way for a company to be set apart from other online competition is unique website design. Businesses turn to internet technology companies for the development of a professional and search engine friendly, website.

Utah-based Heritage Web Solutions specializes in designing and hosting affordable websites for small and medium size businesses. In business since 2001, Heritage designs all websites to custom fit each company, giving each client a unique, original and authentic design. Customers of Heritage also have access to custom flash graphics, Ecommerce development and assistance, database creation and management, and traffic driving resources, among other services.

For more information, please visit www.heritagewebdesign.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services.

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/heritage_web_solutions_spotlighted_by_economic_report_show.html

Host Gator Enhances Shared Hosting Plans

2008-10-28T02:52:00-04:00

Houston, Texas (The Hosting News) Web hosting firm, HostGator, has upgraded its plan structure, by offering unlimited space and bandwidth, to its shared hosting plan portfolio for customers.

The upgrades affect both new and existing shared hosting customers. With this change, there will be no space and bandwidth restrictions on any shared hosting plans from HostGator. The differentiation between the company’s three shared hosting plans will lie in the extra features offered with each plan.

Brent Oxley, CEO and Founder of HostGator noted, ''I'm thrilled to see that the disk space and bandwidth arms race is finally coming to an end. We can now focus on what we do best, which is provide a reliable and affordable service with unbeatable customer service.''

HostGator's entry-level shared hosting plan, the Hatchling, allows customers to host one domain name with their account, while the mid-level plan, called the Baby plan, allows customers to host unlimited domain names within the same account. The newly renamed Business plan, which is designed for customers looking to conduct e-commerce transactions on their web sites, offers shared hosting customers unlimited domains and as well as a free SSL certificate and dedicated IP address.

With the new plans, all of HostGator's existing customers will also be able to have unlimited space and bandwidth. Customers that currently have the Business plan will also be able to request a free SSL certificate and dedicated IP address.

These upgrades represent part of a series of moves by HostGator to become the world-leading provider of shared, reseller, and dedicated web hosting. The company is expecting a 20% sales increase as a result of the plan upgrades.

Based in Houston, Texas, HostGator is a world-leading provider of shared, reseller, and dedicated web hosting. Founded by current president and CEO Brent Oxley in his dorm room at Florida Atlantic University, HostGator has grown to become one of the world's largest web hosting companies. In August 2008, HostGator was recognized by Inc. Magazine as the 21st fastest growing private company in America.

For more information about Host Gator, please visit: www.hostgator.com.

Find companies that offer hosting. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/host_gator_enhances_shared_hosting_plans.html

GoDaddy Translates Feedback Into Customer Benefits

2008-10-28T02:38:00-04:00

Scottsdale, Arizona - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Hosting domain registrar, GoDaddy, has enhanced its customer feedback system, to include valuable upgrades, translating its user suggestions into benefits.

The new program is part of Go Daddy's continued efforts to improve products and services,based on input from many of its six million customers who call Go Daddy for help, or to suggest product improvements.

Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of Go Daddy explained, ''I've always said our customers are our best marketers. Turns out our customers are a key to our product development too - our best ideas come from Go Daddy's customers.''

As economic conditions leave consumers searching for ways to save time and money, Go Daddy has implemented a wide range of significant product upgrades and service enhancements. These improvements include upgrades for businesses looking to stretch their ecommerce dollars, to individuals in need of additional disk space with their hosting accounts, as well as a complete remodel to the GoDaddy.com web site itself.

Visitors to GoDaddy.com are reaping time savings with the remodeled Web site. Something customers asked for and Go Daddy delivered. In-house designers spent months collecting user feedback and incorporating their ideas to make the site easier to navigate.

As more and more people look to create or bolster their online presence, Go Daddy is expanding Web site building services too. For people who want to have their site developed without investing lots of time or money, Go Daddy has introduced two plans. Create-it-for-me Web sites are for those who want an informational site to target customers. Anyone needing ongoing and continuously refreshed content can use Power Content Plans. Both include Traffic Blazer and Traffic Facts for no extra charge.

Go Daddy also introduced an Unlimited Hosting package designed for power users who need more disk space and bandwidth. Unlimited Hosting is available on both Windows and Linux.

Another time-saving tool from Go Daddy is a new integrated product suite which allows users to quickly switch between Website Tonight, Quick Shopping Cart and Quick Blogcast. This integration is aimed at business users who want to build a complete online presence, including ecommerce, using Go Daddy's simple-to-use products. Go Daddy's in-house development teams create most all of the company's 40-plus product offerings.

Mr. Parsons added, ''Our developers actually listen in on customer calls to learn how we can improve products. In most cases, for us, it comes down to saving people time and money - two precious commodities these days.''

Email has grown into an important communication tool for individuals and businesses. Now Go Daddy offers an email plan with unlimited storage space and IMAP. The company also launched two new Hosted Exchange email plans with BlackBerry support.

Go Daddy is also present on social networking sites. Go Daddy has Facebook widgets GoDaddy.com File Folder and GoDaddy.com Quick Blogcast. Customers can also use Twitter to check for available domains by following DomainCheck.

Go Daddy is the world's top Internet domain name registrar, is more than three times the size of its closest competitor, has been honored as 'Arizona's Most Innovative Company' and was recently voted 'Best Registrar' by Web users worldwide. Go Daddy is also one of the world's top web hosting companies and prides itself on helping novices or experts enhance their online presence with fast, friendly 24/7 customer support.

Go Daddy is a provider of services that are designed to enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has more than 31 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world's largest hostname provider according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2007, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi. GoDaddy.com has also been honored by various industry organizations and publications as Best Registrar and Best Hosting Company already this year. In 2007, Go Daddy was named Arizona's Most Innovative Company and Business Leader of the Year.

To learn more about GoDaddy, please visit: www.godaddy.com.

Review options for a new dedicated host or server.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/godaddy_translates_feedback_into_customer_benefits.html

Colocation, Dedicated Server Web Hosting Firm, Netriplex, Debuts UberBandwidth

2008-10-28T12:00:00-04:00

Asheville, North Carolina - (The Hosting News) Uber Bandwidth costs $3.99 per megabit and is initially available at Netriplex'ss newest data center in North Carolina.

Jonathan Hoppe, Chief Technology Officer at Netriplex noted ''Businesses are increasingly using the Internet for mission critical applications. With the proliferation of VOIP, video-on-demand and social networking, our customers demand high-performance Internet connectivity in unprecedented quantity. Uber Bandwidth was created to meet their needs with an extreme network featuring multiple ten-gigabit connections to every major network in the U.S., Canada and Europe which is then available to our customers for $3.99 per megabit.''

Uber Bandwidth is available at Netriplex'ss newest data center in Asheville, North Carolina. Netriplex offers collocation from 1 rack unit all the way up to 1000 sq. ft. plus private suites. Through IT infrastructure colocation, customers can acquire Uber Bandwidth and direct access to thousands of networks through Uber'ss 1-terabit-capable infrastructure featuring a diverse path fiber network powered by best-of-breed Cisco routers and switches, intrusion protection systems and proprietary best-path internet routing engines.

Web 2.0 online businesses no longer settle for data centers with just a few transit providers. The Uber Bandwidth network gives customers the fastest and shortest path to the end user. It 'sleap frogs's networks they traditionally had to transit, shaving valuable time off the trip and increasing performance, states Hoppe.

Through 24/7/365 support and remote-hands-and-eyes services, businesses anywhere in the world can colocate servers in Netriplex data centers. As demand for the Uber Bandwidth network grows, Netriplex will deploy it at its six other datacenters across the U.S. and London.

Founded in 1999, Netriplex is a global provider of IT infrastructure hosting and business continuity solutions. Its new 15,000 sq. ft. SAS70 Type II certified datacenter in Asheville, NC, offers web hosting, grid computing, server colocation and disaster recovery office space in a state-of-the-art and completely redundant environment designed for 100% uptime. Netriplex operates other datacenters in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, San Jose, Seattle and London, U.K.

To learn more, please visit: www.netriplex.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/colocation_dedicated_server_web_hosting_firm_netriplex_debuts_ub.html

Cloud Hosting Suite, Expanded at Rackspace

2008-10-27T03:50:00-04:00

New York, New York - (The Hosting News) Rackspace Hosting, Inc., with acquisitions of Jungle Disk, Slicehost and its launch of Cloud Files, has expanded its Cloud Hosting portfolio offerings recently.

Rackspace Hosting's cloud hosting strategy extends the company's technology and service leadership to cloud hosting. In addition to agreeing to acquire Slicehost and Jungle Disk, the company has established relationships with Limelight Networks, Inc. and Sonian Networks, to provide more robust service offerings.

Lanham Napier, CEO, Rackspace Hosting remarked, ''Cloud computing offers tremendous benefits to our customers that complement our traditional managed hosting services. Being a leader in hosting means being a leader in the cloud. Today, we made clear our intent to have the best suite of cloud offerings. Our new offerings are part of a strategy to bring cloud benefits to all businesses with simple, cost-effective products that everyone can use, backed by the best customer support that only Rackspace can deliver.''

Rackspace's acquisition of two innovators in the cloud community, Slicehost and Jungle Disk, bring proven solutions to the suite including on-demand, virtualized servers and online storage software and services, respectively. Slicehost is a leader in Xen-based virtual machine hosting with more than 15,000 ''slices'' online today. Jungle Disk offers reliable cloud storage solutions that allow users to easily share an unlimited amount of cloud storage between multiple users through a secure, mountable network drive and automatic backup. Over time, Rackspace intends to integrate their capabilities into its complete hosting portfolio to provide business customers a suite of hosting solutions to meet all of their IT needs.

Jason Seats, Founder, Slicehost noted, ''On-demand computing is the new foundation of hosting. Rackspace gives us the ability to expand the Slicehost offer and meet the needs of the corporate world whose interest in cloud technologies has only just begun. In addition, no one else shares our customer first service philosophy more than Rackspace. It is an obvious fit.''

Dave Wright, CEO and Founder, Jungle Disk commented, ''Rackspace is a natural fit for the next evolution of Jungle Disk. We are creating a set of storage solutions that will help solve rapidly-growing storage problems for businesses. We believe that no one could take this solution to the business world better than Rackspace. Together we will push the cloud revolution and make simple and cost effective storage solutions available to businesses of all sizes.''

Rackspace is quickly developing one of the most comprehensive hosting solution suites ranging from dedicated managed servers and hosted email solutions to highly scalable cloud hosting and storage services based on open standards and technologies. Combined, IT departments and small businesses now have a full range of tools to power their computing needs.

Rackspace's cloud strategy is supported by three core offerings, all part of Mosso, Rackspace's Cloud Hosting Division. The company's existing Hosting Cloud and CloudFS storage offerings have been re-branded to reflect the company’s newly integrated approach:

· Cloud Sites -- Rackspace's flagship cloud offering, The Hosting Cloud, is now Cloud Sites. Developed by Mosso, Rackspace's cloud division, it offers a scalable platform for handling huge traffic spikes and a pay-as-you-grow pricing model. Cloud Sites is a heterogeneous environment, supporting both Windows and Linux.

· Cloud Files -- Rackspace's internet-based storage service, CloudFS, is now Cloud Files. Cloud Files gives developers instant access to an enterprise-grade storage infrastructure and reduces overall investment and IT costs while providing infinite scalability. Cloud Files offers an industry leading SLA and a highly competitive pricing model with replicated storage starting at $0.15/GB. Also later this year, Limelight Networks will team with Rackspace to allow developers to easily distribute content to millions of end users around the world and bring scalable content delivery and application acceleration services to the masses. While continuing to support the Amazon S3 platform, Jungle Disk will port to Rackspace's Cloud Files system in the coming months. Jungle Disk comes in both desktop and workgroup editions across the Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.

· Cloud Servers -- This new hosting solution, which will deliver on-demand server capacity to businesses of all sizes, will leverage key technology developed by Slicehost, which uses Xen virtualization software. Slicehost will remain as the company's developer brand, creating innovative new features driven through shared intellectual property in conjunction with development initiatives from Rackspace. As part of the announcement, Slicehost also announced new, larger slices for high performance computing, lower prices as well as IP sharing for high availability computing.

Rackspace also announced widespread community interest in their cloud suite. A wide set of cloud tool companies have expressed intent to support the Rackspace cloud. The list of companies includes RightScale, CohesiveFT, rPath, SOASTA and Vertica. In addition, Sonian Networks, the leader in cloud mail archiving solutions, and Mailtrust, the Email Hosting division of Rackspace announced they had reached an agreement to offer low cost archiving to Mailtrust's 100,000+ business domains. Through this agreement, Sonian Networks will also port their solution to the Rackspace cloud suite.

The purchase price of the combined acquisitions is approximately $11.5 million payable in cash and stock, with the potential for up to $16.5 million in additional payouts of cash and stock based on certain performance criteria.

Rackspace Hosting provides computing-as-a-service, integrating the industry's best technologies into a flexible service offering, with the goal of 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, email hosting and cloud hosting.

To learn more about Rackspace's Cloud Hosting offerings, please visit: www.mosso.com.

For more information about Rackspace Managed Hosting, please visit: www.rackspace.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/cloud_hosting_suite_expanded_at_rackspace.html

AIT Debuts No Limits Domains

2008-10-27T03:17:00-04:00

Fayetville, North Carolina - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Hosting provider, Advanced Internet Technologies, Inc. (AIT), has debuted the launch of its new hosting plans, allowing unlimited domains to be served, regardless of price.

Sean A. McCoy, Chief Marketing Officer noted, ''We are working hard every day to improve our value proposition to our customers. Times are tough and if we don't continue to provide ways to get more for less than someone else certainly will. Our new resellers should have the biggest benefit, as this promotion allows them to grow without restriction. Additionally, we hope to see our business class accounts experimenting as resellers. It's a win in our minds for everyone.''

The company cites real world examples of how this improvement in service capabilities creates profitability for a typical business class hosting customer. For instance, a non-technical entrepreneur can create inexpensive web sites for their customers using AIT's free web site builder, Ready4Design2007, and host all of those web sites for less than sixty dollars per year. Companies and individuals who have never contemplated expanding their revenues through web services now have a low cost, high feature packed option to enter this service arena.

This announcement is preceded by AIT's release last week of Email Marketer Pro, which provides an all-in-one automated email marketing solution.

Mr. McCoy added, ''If you bundle the two offerings together (Email Marketer Pro and unlimited hosting) you really get a launch pad for success for customers can market for new prospects and sign them up while staying in touch with current customers in the form of newsletters and announcements. The only real limitations to success are the individual effort and the physical capacity of the server.''

AIT has also stated that it will offer limited time upgrades to current business and reseller accounts who contact the company.

Advanced Internet Technologies, Inc., is home to over 210,000 customers to include Fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses. AIT was founded in North Carolina and has grown into a multimillion dollar web hosting and technology company. From a garage start-up to a 93,000 SF Headquarters, AIT has always been entrepreneurial and customer-centric. Small businesses to larger clients like Time Warner, Microsoft, Newsweek, U.S. Federal Government, PC World, United Nations, Business Week, The Oakridge Boys, State of North Carolina, Department of Defense, Wall Street Journal, ZD net, Pizza Hut, Goodyear, Smart Money, Discover Radio, and many more have benefited from AIT's products and services. AIT has achieved 12 straight years of sustained profitability generating $100s of millions in revenue. AIT has created more than 236 IT jobs AIT has also been named 2 times to the Inc. 500 list of fast growing firms, 3 times to the Deloitte and Touche Fast 500 list, and has been named as the NC Entrepreneur Firm of the Year.

For more information about AIT, please visit: www.ait.com.

View dedicated servers host companies here. http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/ait_debuts_no_limits_domains.html

HostV Debuts Full Data Backup for VPS

2008-10-25T06:00:00-04:00

New York, New York - (The Hosting News) - October 24, 2008 - HostV, web hosting Virtual Private Server and Dedicated server company, has added an additional layer of data backup for its Virtual Private Servers at no additional charge, automatically.

John Xie, President of Cirtex Corp., HostV parent company remarked, ''We are effectively doubling the disk space allotment for our clients by introducing complete backups. Although we already provide a variety of other data protection options, including RAID-10 drive configurations, the addition of full account backups helps add peace of mind for our clients, who utilize our services to fulfill their mission-critical requirements.''

In addition to RAID-10 data protection, clients can now take advantage of complete data backups that do not count against their disk space allotment. The full backup option allows clients to periodically generate full backups of all data hosted on their Virtual Private Server. The data is compressed and encrypted, and stored on a separate drive.

Clients can easily restore their data from a previous restore point through an online interface in their Parallels Virtuozzo control panel. Each restore point can also be downloaded as a ZIP file and stored by the client.

Virtual Private Servers from HostV start at $39.99/monthly for 25GB of disk space and 500GB of top-tier data transfer. All accounts include the Parallels Virtuozzo Power Panel, cPanel Control Panel, support for video hosting, the Fantastico auto-installer suite, and 24/7/365 world class customer and technical support.

Founded in 2003, Cirtex Corp. is leading provider of Shared, reseller, virtual dedicated and dedicated Web hosting solutions. The company serves thousands of customers internationally through two dynamic brands - CirtexHosting and HostV. Cirtex Corp. offers 24/7 technical support and a 30-Day unconditional guarantee.

For more information about CirtexHosting, please visit: www.cirtexhosting.com.

To learn more about HostV, please visit: www.hostv.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/hostv_debuts_full_data_backup_for_vps.html

Small Businesses, Boosted by Concentric Services

2008-10-25T06:00:00-04:00

San Jose, California - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) - October 24, 2008 - Concentric has reported that its Professional Web Site Services have been developed for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs), to enhance online presence.

Dennis V. Damp, President, Bookhaven Press LLC noted, ''We left our previous web hosting provider because of constant downtime and their inexperienced staff. The Concentric technical staff is experienced, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. Concentric's Clustered Hosting architecture is unparalleled. As a result of our experience with the Concentric technology platform and the Professional Services team, we plan to move additional sponsored web sites to the Concentric platform in the coming months.''

Barbara Branaman, Executive Vice President of product and marketing at Concentric remarked, ''Concentric is committed to providing SMBs with affordable, high-quality web hosted applications to help them manage and grow their online business. We take pride in our customer's business and treat it as our own, which is why we provide highly-trained 'can-do' staff to get the job done so our customer's staff can focus on their core business.''

The Concentric Professional Web Site Services are specifically designed for SMBs that need an affordable turnkey solution to design, deploy, and manage critical web sites and e-commerce applications. Concentric spans more than a decade of providing services for hosted applications. By leveraging the Concentric Professional Services, SMBs can outsource development tasks, saving them time and money. Services range from basic HTML edits to custom web design and scripting. Enabling e-commerce is one of the most popular web site applications the company is asked to complete.

Concentric provides custom and packaged technical services built on a highly reliable, secure hosting platform. Benefits to SMBs include access to the company's expanded hosted product suite, including Microsoft Hosted Exchange, and the expertise of a Professional Services group. Bookhaven Press LLC, a publishing house, looked to Concentric to migrate their existing e-commerce web site to a Concentric web site hosting plan because of the Concentric reputation for reliability and security. Bookhaven also needed to increase web traffic and performance.

Bookhaven Press selected Concentric because of the company's Clustered Hosting architecture, a patented technology platform that delivers a highly reliable hosting service with greater speed, performance, and security than traditional shared hosting. With the unique Concentric Clustered Hosting technology configuration, Bookhaven Press benefits from virtually inexhaustible server resources with multiple tiers of security, including intelligent routing, redundant switching fabric, built-in firewall, and proxy technology.

Concentric provides a variety of commonly used SMB web site packages: -- Web Site Design: Provides customers with web site design or redesign, including 17 hours of design and production time and eight hours of maintenance and updates for the web site over a 12-month term. Included is a Concentric web site hosting account, a 'Contact Us' form, configuration of users and email hosting, search engine optimization, Google Analytics set-up, and thirty minutes of Google Analytics training. -- Web Site Migration: Designed for organizations that already have a web site but want to move it to the Concentric platform and need help with routine maintenance and enhancements.

Included is a Concentric hosting account, configuration of users and email accounts, optimization for search engines, Google Analytics with thirty minutes of training, and eight hours of maintenance and updates over a 12-month term. -- Web Site Maintenance: Ideal for customers who have a web site and need resources to perform ongoing maintenance or make enhancements. The Basic Package includes HTML, content updates, and hosting administrative help. The Advance Package covers more advanced tasks such as ecommerce set up, PHP coding, databases, and Content Management Systems. These packages are Workforce Management: At the Heart of the Contact Center Learn more, download free white paper. The Modern Contact Center and Workforce Management's Vital Role Learn more, download free white paper. Realizing the Full Promise of Workforce Management Technology: Avoiding Mistakes That Short-Change Your Investment Learn more, download free white paper.

Concentric's Web Site Design Package is priced at $89.95 a month. The Web Site Migration package is priced at $69.95 a month. All packages are based on a 12-month agreement with a three month prepayment, and include web site hosting and email.

Concentric provides web site and email hosting and hosted IT services including enterprise-class domain management and perimeter email protection. Concentric delivers superior performance, reliability, and security and is the only Web hosting service to hold a patent for its Clustered Hosting architecture. Concentric accounts are backed by a three month Satisfaction Guarantee, 24x7 customer support, and a 99.9% SLA. Concentric is a business unit of XO Communications.

XO Communications, a subsidiary of XO Holdings, Inc. is a leading provider of 21st century communications services for businesses and communications services providers, including 50 percent of the Fortune 500 and leading cable companies, carriers, content providers, and mobile operators. Utilizing its unique and powerful nationwide IP network and extensive local metro networks and broadband wireless facilities, XO offers customers a broad range of managed voice, data and IP services in 75 metropolitan markets across the United States.

To learn more about Concentric, please visit: www.concentric.com.

For more information about XO Communications, please visit: www.xo.com.

Managed dedicated server hosting - check here for options.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/small_businesses_boosted_by_concentric_services.html

Aplus.Net Upgrades Website

2008-10-22T17:00:00-04:00

Overland Park, Kansas - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) - October 22, 2008 - Web host and Internet solutions provider, Aplus.Net, has developed a new logo, as well as improving and upgraded its website, with better navigation.

The upgrades changes are the latest steps in the company's ongoing efforts to upgrade and improve the functionality of its services in order to continue to provide the best possible online experience for its more than 200,000 customers.

Alex Yevelev, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Aplus.net remarked, ''If you're not growing in this marketplace, you're losing ground. We're very proud to have had more than 16 years of success and growth in an extremely competitive industry, where most companies don't last more than a few years. However, we also understand the need to continually update our products and services to keep up with a rapidly changing online marketplace.''

The new design offers improved navigation and clearer messaging to visitors, making shopping at the Aplus.net website easier and more appealing to customers, according to company representatives. In keeping with the company's customer-friendly reputation, the site continues to offer a classic, intuitive look and feel, with a similar color palette as before. Changes have also been made to the site's navigation bars - both the top and left-hand navbars have been streamlined for a much more simplified browsing experience.

In keeping with the spirit of the redesign, the company's signature logo was also made over to communicate a newer, more modern Aplus.net. The updated look was designed to assist the company's branding efforts and to emphasize the fact that, while Aplus.net has been around for almost two decades, the company still has a comprehensive vision for the future and remains a major force and competitive player in today's highly competitive online solutions and web hosting markets.

Arriving on the heels of other big news for Aplus.net - including the introduction of a new Business Mail service, the unveiling of the Aplus.net Forum social networking site, and the addition of a new CEO and CFO to its management team - the new design and the new logo represent the latest stage in the award-winning company's campaign to reinvent itself for a new era.

Mr. Yevelev added, ''These new changes do just that, as well as help to ensure that our thousands of online business customers have every possible advantage in an increasingly unpredictable economy. We've worked hard this year to improve every aspect of our business. During the first part of 2008, we've completely rebranded our shared and dedicated hosting services, introduced eCommerce functionality to our web design service, created a new forum for our customers, and launched a new Business Mail service, in addition to implementing a host of other upgrades designed to represent our commitment to continued growth and improvement in this new online marketplace.''

These new changes come on the heels of Aplus.Net's new Forum, which includes blogging, networking, online chat and communication services, created exclusively for the company's expanding customer base.

Working to continue its tradition as a complete online partner for today's small businesses and online entrepreneurs, Aplus.net's new forum is a venue for its community of customers - a number that exceeds 200,000 and continues to grow - to trade tips, advice, and insight into everything from building a small business to mastering e-commerce. The Aplus.net Forum also serves as an official location for customers to receive information directly from the company itself.

Aplus.Net has provided web services since the Internet's commercial start in 1995. Aplus.Net is one of the top ten privately held hosting companies in the United States. Specializing in helping small businesses build a customer base via the Internet, Aplus.Net offers award-winning services that include web hosting and design, dedicated servers, online marketing, e-commerce, domain name registration, and much more. Aplus.Net has been awarded many honors for excellence, including the prestigious CNET Editors' Choice Award, and has been featured in top U.S. business publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, and PC Magazine.

For more information about Aplus.Net, please visit: www.aplus.net.

Compare dedicated web hosting companies, products, and services.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/aplus_net_upgrades_website.html

iNET Interactive Acquires WebHostingTalk Australia

2008-10-21T04:36:00-04:00

West Chester, Ohio - (The Hosting News) Hosting industry resource, iNET Interactive, has acquired WebHostingTalk Australia, which is anticipated to benefit the membership and advertisers on Australia's largest web hosting community.

WebHostingTalk Australia is the leading online community focused on web hosting for the Australian marketplace. The move enables iNET Interactive to reduce confusion in the marketplace around the Web Hosting Talk brand, and it builds a bridge between WebHostingTalk.com and the region-specific Web Hosting Talk Australia.

Troy Augustine, President and CEO of iNET Interactive noted, ''We are pleased that we were able to make WebHostingTalk Australia part of the iNET Interactive network of online communities. The acquisition reduces brand confusion in the marketplace, but it also adds a growing, well-moderated web hosting community to our network.''

As part of the iNET Interactive network, WebHostingTalk Australia will be migrated to iNET's technology platform. While sharing many of the same technologies and design elements as WebHostingTalk.com, WebHostingTalk Australia will maintain its unique identity as it continues to serve the specific needs of the web hosting industry in Australia and the Pacific Rim.

The more than 5,000 members of WebHostingTalk Australia will benefit from new site functionality provided as a result of iNET Interactive's expertise in online communities. The current WebHostingTalk Australia advertisers will benefit from the increased reach into Australian audiences across the iNET Interactive network.

Gary Meadows, the lead moderator at WebHostingTalk Australia, and his moderation team will continue in their current roles. Mr. Meadows explained, ''iNET Interactive has gained recognition as a company committed to building online communities with the same passion and commitment as their original founders. We are excited to become part of iNET Interactive as we take WebHostingTalk Australia to the next level.''

In August, iNet acquired the largest and fastest growing print publication serving the Search Marketing industry, Search Marketing Standard. The acquisition also includes associated web properties, SearchMarketingStandard.com, PayPerClickUniverse.com and SEMCompare.com. Launched in early 2006, with the goal to provide readers with practical, relevant and easy-to-understand Internet Marketing information, Search Marketing Standard magazine has grown from a newcomer in the field to an authoritative resource used by over 50,000 search engine advertisers and Internet marketers. Search Marketing Standard's websites incorporate user-contributed ratings, reviews, and discussion along with professionally-produced, instructional content focused on helping businesses succeed within the rapidly growing field of search and Internet marketing.

Founded in 2002, iNET Interactive operates some of the most prominent online communities, including Web Hosting Talk and HotScripts.com, designed for technology professionals and technology enthusiasts. Its vertically-focused communities incorporate user-contributed ratings, reviews, and discussion augmented with professionally-produced content.

Launched in 2002, WebHostingTalk Australia is the largest online community focused on web hosting and hosted services within the Australian marketplace.

For more information about WebHostingTalk Australia, please visit: www.webhostingtalk.com.au.

To learn more about iNET Interactive, please visit: www.inetinteractive.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/inet_interactive_acquires_webhostingtalk_australia.html

Paid Hired by CMJ Network, for Web Community, Merchandise

2008-10-21T04:15:00-04:00

Boston, Massachusetts - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Web hosting and services provider, Paid, Inc., has entered into an agreement with CMJ Network Inc., to develop a web community and launch an exclusive merchandise line.

The new merchandise lines will be available at CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival, from October 21-25 in New York City and online at shop.cmj.com.

Bobby Haber, CEO of CMJ remarked, ''We've engaged Paid to develop an interactive community that will expand upon the reach and presence CMJ already has among our college radio stations, business clients and fan communities nationwide. Paid will facilitate one-to-one and one-to-many dialogues that will enable us to gather additional, invaluable insight into the college and emerging music markets. We believe this will translate into new revenue streams for CMJ and Paid as brands and marketers engage us for market research that will enable them to better know their target audience and more accurately focus their marketing efforts to them.''

CMJ contracted with Paid, Inc.'s celebrity services department to invigorate and broaden the scope of its online presence, including development of a web community that will, among many other elements, establish an interactive communication channel with the highly desirable and trend-influencing college student market to provide market research data for CMJ's broad client base.

Paid will also exclusively manage CMJ's new merchandising line through online channels, live events and tours across the USA. CMJ has been a key player in the music industry for over 25 years, discovering and supporting new artists from myriad contemporary genres through its online, print and live event assets as well as tracking weekly new artist airplay on more than 500 college and non-commercial radio stations across North America.

CMJ charts run regularly in publications such as Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, identifying the top emerging acts that will develop into the next multi-Platinum artists. By building this web community and integrating a broad range of members-only online services, Paid will provide CMJ a greater range of services to offer its clients including record labels, musical artists and their respective constituencies.

Keith Garde, President of Paid, Inc., celebrity services remarked, ''Our strategic alliance will enable CMJ to broaden its interaction and dialogue with college students from coast to coast, generating critical feedback and market research data signaling future trends and purchasing habits. By reaching out to this broad, influential market segment to gather and manage data from them, we believe it will give CMJ, its clients and Paid's clients a competitive edge.''

Paid will expand CMJ's online presence by utilizing social media and delivering an ever-changing array of applications to this web community, enabling innovative content and multiple opportunities for interaction. CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival Paid's first project for CMJ is the launch of its exclusive new merchandising line that will debut at CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival, October 21-25.

Music Marathon is New York's largest and most important music event, featuring five days and nights of performances by over 1,000 emergent acts in 65 venues throughout the city with live music showcases, film premieres, parties and special events, all complemented with more than 70 music, media and technology-centric panels. Official CMJ merchandise items will be available at shop.cmj.com and at the CMJ merchandise booth at the following New York City locations: Booth #15 in the CMJ Exhibition Hall, 10th Floor at NYU's Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South Tuesday, Oct. 21 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 22 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Judson Memorial Church, Event Registration Lobby 55 Washington Square South Friday, Oct. 24 7:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

In the future, Paid also will be coordinating VIP fan experience packages for CMJ Marathon as well as for other events nationwide. VIP packages are expected to include unique experiential opportunities such as meet and greets with band members, photo opps, pre-concert parties, early entry passes, autographed or exclusive merchandise, and more. About CMJ Network Inc. CMJ Network connects music fans and music industry professionals with the best in new music through interactive media, live events and print. CMJ.com offers a digital music discovery service, information resources, and community to new music fans, professionals, and artists.

CMJ Events produces the legendary CMJ Music Marathon, the largest and longest-running music event of its kind, in addition to live events and tours across the USA. The weekly music business trade magazine CMJ New Music Report is the primary source for exclusive charts of non-commercial and college radio airplay and independent and trend-forward retail sales.

CMJ New Music Monthly, the first consumer magazine to include a bound-in CD sampler, is the leading publication for the emerging music enthusiast. CMJ Access is an integrated marketing agency specializing in providing its clients unparalleled access to the college and young adult demographic and emerging music world. Log on to www.cmj.com for more information about all of CMJ's products and services.

Paid, Inc.'s celebrity services provides famous people with official web sites and fan club services that include e-commerce storefronts, ticketing and fan experience packages, and web site content. The Company also sponsors autograph signing events and other sports marketing services for sports clientele. Using proprietary patent-pending technology, Paid's patent-pending AuctionInc brand shipping calculation and auction management software and services are utilized to streamline online auctions, ecommerce and web site development and hosting.

For more information about Paid web hosting services, please visit: www.paid.com.

Research webhosting companies, budget web hosting and ecommerce web site hosting. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/paid_hired_by_cmj_network_for_web_community_merchandise.html

Layered Tech Deploys Managed Services Extension

2008-10-20T17:00:00-04:00

Plano, Texas - (The Hosting News) Dedicated server products and utility services firm, Layered Technologies, Inc.'s virtualization investments and acquisition of FastServers.net, have assisted in the extension of virtual machines, including DEFCON managed services.

John Pozadzides, Chief Marketing Officer at Layered Tech noted, ''For years, Layered Tech has created flexible solutions that remove server costs and complexity so that customers can focus on their core business and leave server management to us. The extension of DEFCON managed services to our Grid Layer virtual machines is another powerful value-creating tool for our customers. Our roots are as a hosting provider that works closely with customers, and we're continuing to do that in the area of virtualization by giving our customers even greater choice when it comes to defining the amount of security, support, monitoring, and specialized software that is associated with their virtualization environment.''

The latest advance from Layered Tech now enables customers of its Grid Layer virtual machines (VM) to experience the same highly developed services available to its dedicated server clients.

DEFCON managed services mitigate challenges commonly associated with the operations of hosted infrastructure, providing a single source for server administration, service-level based support, 24x7 monitoring and recovery, patch management, and security protection. In addition to The Grid Layer VM offering, DEFCON managed services are available with Layered Tech's on-demand, dedicated server solutions based on CentOS, Red Hat, and Windows 2003.

Tiered DEFCON managed services provide customers the freedom to choose the level of service they want to manage their servers. From DEFCON 5 (for those customers who want to manage all aspects of their server applications) to DEFCON 1 (in which Layered Tech provides the full scope of server management and monitoring), companies can customize their server operations, easily and quickly scaling up or down as their organizations grow and as needs change.

The benefits of transitioning to a hosted virtual machine environment are amplified for companies that traditionally buy multiple physical servers, because virtualization can significantly reduce costs associated with hardware, data centers and other network infrastructure. In addition to saving hard costs, customers also can reduce demands on internal IT personnel who no longer have to manage multiple physical servers and data centers.

DEFCON management services are available initially to existing Layered Tech customers - those who already are Grid Layer VM customers and those who wish to migrate from a dedicated server environment to a virtualization platform. The managed virtual machine offering includes an operating system such as CentOS and a control panel such as cPanel or Plesk; customers will have the option to buy management services for those control panels.

Jack Finlayson, CEO of Layered Tech remarked, ''We are able to offer DEFCON managed services across our suite of hosted infrastructure offerings because Layered Tech has made solid strategic decisions, including our investments in virtualization technologies and our acquisition of FastServers.net. Just like our traditional dedicated server hosted business has stood the test of time, we strongly believe that Layered Tech's virtualization strategy has already positioned us far ahead of other providers. In fact, virtualization solutions are the fastest-growing segment of our product and service portfolio, and we look forward to continuing to deliver cutting-edge virtualization solutions by working closely with and for our customers.''

Layered Technologies, Inc. is a global provider of on-demand hosting, utility computing solutions and web services. By providing high quality technology, infrastructure and support we enable customers to forego capital expenses and save on operating costs while focusing on core business issues. Layered Technologies' scalable infrastructure powers millions of sites and Internet enabled applications including e-Commerce, Software as a Service (''SaaS''), content distribution and more. Its clients range from leading-edge Web 2.0 startups, successful mid-sized enterprises and some the world's largest consultancy and integration firms.

For more information about Layered Technologies, please visit: www.layeredtech.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/layered_tech_deploys_managed_services_extension.html

Dotster Provides E-Commerce Insight

2008-10-20T17:00:00-04:00

Vancouver, Washington - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Hosting and Internet service firm, Dotster, has issued industry tips for businesses, designed to increase online revenue and improve e-commerce.

While many American businesses may still have a physical front door today, for most enterprises, the real front door is a virtual one -- the web site. In the U.S. alone, more than $200 billion in retail goods will change hands online in 2008, up 17% from 2007.
There's a lot of competition for those e-commerce dollars. That competition may even be bigger, more experienced, and better-funded. But here's the good news: a great Web site will level even the most unequal playing field. And it's never been easier to create a web site that will make the online shopping experience an irresistible one.

Below is some tips from Dotster, to expand online business:

-- Check Out the Competition: Visit some of the most popular e-commerce sites -- amazon.com, QVC.com, ebay.com, apple.com, bestbuy.com, target.com, for example -- and take a few notes. You're an online consumer yourself -- you don't need a doctorate to know what works and what doesn't. What's effective, what's informative, and what's needlessly complicated?

-- Seek Professional Help: Many companies build their own Web sites. But given the importance of this tool to the ultimate success of your business, a little professional help is a wise investment. Once you've compiled your list of Web site dos and don'ts, a full-spectrum Web services provider like Dotster can help build the web site, host it, register your domain name, maintain the site once it's up and running and trouble-shoot any problems that may arise.

-- You'll need a cart. A good grocery store shopping cart runs smoothly, with no 'squeaks.' The same goes for the online shopping cart on your Web site. The shopping cart is the online software that allows customers to select, order and pay for the goods and services they require. Keep it short -- no more than two pages is ideal -- and easy to use. Multiple payment options make it simple for your customers to place an order.

-- Set up your merchant account. Your onsite mechanism for accepting orders and payments involves a series of choices. What kind of payments do you want to accept? Credit cards? Electronic cash? Purchase orders to be billed later? Checks? All of the above? The goal is to make product selection and payment as convenient and secure as possible for your customers -- and for you.

-- Stocking the shelves. Make sure that the organization of your online store is logical and intuitive. Your customers need to be able to find what they want quickly and easily, through intuitive links to product categories and an efficient product search function. At the back end, a good Web services provider will make it easy to add products, change prices and manage all of the technical details that help you 'mind the store.'

-- Make buying easy -- and secure. Design your site to ensure a seamless, one-click flow between shopping and checkout/purchase. And if you want to prosper online, your customer's personal information must be absolutely secure. Your Web services provider will help you install secure Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate hnology, which encrypts data before it's sent to your site and decrypts it upon arrival for a modest yearly fee.

When it comes to designing your business's Web site, it's a good idea to take your time, do your homework -- then decide on the mix of features that makes the most sense for you and your customers. A little professional help will make sure your e-commerce goals translate into a healthier bottom line.

Dotster is a full-service provider of essential resources for businesses to get online and grow online. It has helped approximately 1 million businesses and individuals establish web presence, build their web sites and drive revenue. With millions of domain names under management, Dotster is a recognized leader in the domain registration, web hosting and Internet business service industries. Dotster's mission is to provide the widest range of innovative and easy-to-use Internet solutions and back them with the unprecedented, personalized support that has earned the company superior customer loyalty rates.

Dotster's expansive lineup of intuitive online offerings allows customers to quickly get on the Internet and get started with maximum visibility. Dotster's specialized team of Internet experts understands the online marketplace and the needs of businesses of all sizes. Dotster offers its customers a complete set of services including the ability to get online with a domain name and e-mail address; build a major web presence with hosting and a custom web site; and generate traffic with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and local site promotion. The recent launch of Dotster Connect has provided the first all-in-one social media platform for businesses of all sizes.

For more information, please visit: www.dotster.com.

Secure a dedicated web server and compare dedicated web hosting companies. http://www.gawkwire.com/business/dotster_provides_e-commerce_insight.html

Parallels Web Hosting Virtualization Firm, Debuts Plesk Control Panel 9.0 Beta

2008-10-20T09:30:00-04:00

Renton, Washington - (The Hosting News) Server virtualization, automation and software provider, Parallels, has launched its Plesk Control Panel 9.0 beta, with new features designed to increase usability and functionality for service providers, resellers and end-users.

The beta of Parallels Plesk Control Panel 9.0, used by hosting providers around the world for shared, virtual and dedicated hosting offerings, is designed to simplify the management and administration of websites by automating a large number of tasks, enabling service providers to reduce operating costs and resources while at the same time increasing profitability, efficiency and customer satisfaction. Parallels Plesk Control Panel 9.0 will include more than 100 new features designed to increase ease of use and functionality.

Jack Zubarev, President of Service Provider division, Parallels remarked, ''The new version of Parallels Plesk Control Panel has been specifically developed to meet the evolving demands of our users: service providers, resellers, domain owners, and end-user organizations. Increased functionality such as a more intuitive interface and full integration with the APS catalog will not only enhance the user experience, but also enable service providers to build more flexibility into their service offerings, helping them increase their revenue streams.''

Beta testers will have a preview of the features in greater detail during a live webcast held tomorrow, October 14th from 1:00pm - 2:00pm EST (10:00am - 11:00am PST). All attendees will be invited to join the beta program.

New features in Parallels Plesk Control Panel include:
Vista-Style Interface - Version 9 boasts a completely upgraded user interface designed to help users navigate and perform their tasks faster and easier. The most popular and important actions are available right on the user Home Page. Navigating is faster than ever due to the ability to select Resellers, Clients, Domains and Mail accounts via the path bar.
APS Catalog Integration - Browse web applications packaged in the APS Format and published at www.apsstandard.com/app/ directly from the Parallels Plesk Control Panel. Also, you can add them to the server Application Vault online without the hassles of manual uploading. These applications can be made available to all customers or their distribution can be restricted for provision on a per-user basis, allowing you to conveniently sell the applications according to the hosting plans you provide.

Resellers Level - Parallels Plesk Control Panel's user hierarchy is enriched with a Reseller level account in version 9. Resellers are given the same capabilities as admin level accounts with the exception of server access. This enables resellers to sign up their own clients and resell web hosting services to them.
Total Control Backup - Completely revised Backup/Restore functionality provides users with a more powerful and flexible backup solution than ever before. Selective data backup and restoration through is now a comfortable, painless, and fully controllable process. On-the-fly restoration conflicts resolution offers a variety of ways to resolve restoration conflicts prior to actual update of the system, thus guaranteeing success and complete control over the restoration process.

Parallels is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and service providers across all major hardware, o company with 900 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.

To learn more information on Parallels Plesk Control Panel, please visit: www.parallels.com/products/plesk.

For more information, please visit www.parallels.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/parallels_web_hosting_virtualization_firm_debuts_plesk_control_p.html

Accel-KKR, Acquires Endurance International Group

2008-10-18T06:00:00-04:00

Boston, Massachusetts - (The Hosting News) Endurance International Group, with 600,000 subscription accounts worldwide and over one million domain names, has been sold to technology-focused private equity firm, Accel-KKR.

Under the terms of the transaction, Endurance's Chief Executive Officer Steve Sydness, Executive Vice Presidents Hari Ravichandran and Thomas Gorny, together with their senior management team, will continue in their current roles. Endurance's senior management team will continue to hold a significant equity stake in the company.

Geoffrey S. Rehnert, Co-CEO of Audax Group, noted, ''Steve Sydness and his team did an outstanding job working together with Audax to source and integrate 17 add-on acquisitions during our ownership period, building Endurance into a leader in the shared web hosting market. We wish Steve and his team continued success.''

Steve Sydness, Chief Executive Officer of Endurance added, ''It has been a great experience working with Audax Group. Their expertise in sourcing, executing, and integrating add-on acquisitions was a key to helping us grow our business. We look forward to continuing to build the business and retaining a significant equity stake in the company.''

Ben Bisconti, Managing Director of Accel-KKR, offered, ''Steve, Hari, Thomas and their senior management team have built the critical mass Endurance requires for continued rapid and profitable expansion, a highly scalable platform with which to facilitate this growth, and a unique infrastructure that allows Endurance to serve an increasing customer base with outstanding levels of service. The company has a strong track record of growing organically and through acquisitions and we believe it is uniquely positioned to continue doing so in this environment. This is a world-class team and a well-positioned business, and we are pleased to be investing in both.''

Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, Endurance is a provider of subscription-based, shared web site hosting and other online applications and services to individuals and small-to-medium sized businesses. With 24 branded properties, Endurance serves over 600,000 accounts worldwide. Audax, together with management, acquired the company in May 2003 and subsequently sourced and integrated 17 add-on acquisitions.

Ropes and Gray LLP advised Audax Group, while Piper Jaffray and Co. advised Endurance.

Mr. Sydness added, ''We are delighted to partner with Accel-KKR, a firm with a long track record of helping build great technology businesses, as we begin the next chapter of growth for our company. Over the years, we have worked diligently to build Endurance into a preeminent player in the online applications and services space. While we are proud of the leading brands and worldwide customer base we have developed, we are confident that the best is yet to come for our company – and for our customers. Our industry remains a highly fragmented one, in which we are well-positioned to continue our growth, both organically and through acquisitions. We look forward to working with Accel-KKR to achieve this end.''

Tom Barnds, Managing Director of Accel-KKR, added, ''At Accel-KKR, we are excited about the opportunity to work with Endurance in helping the company continue a remarkable track record of growth and industry leadership. We are in a tough economic environment, and we are pleased to be partnering with the Endurance management team in moving forward with a wellcapitalized strategy for continuing to build on the company’s leadership position.''

Audax Group, founded in 1999, is a leading investor in middle market companies. With offices in Boston and New York, Audax manages in excess of $4.3 billion of equity, mezzanine debt, and senior loan capital.

Accel-KKR is a technology-focused private equity firm with over $1 billion in assets under management. The firm invests primarily in technology-enabled businesses well positioned for top-line and bottom-line growth. At the core of Accel-KKR’s investment strategy is a commitment to developing strong partnerships with the management teams of its portfolio companies and a focus on building value through the significant resources available through the Accel-KKR network. Accel-KKR has a particular focus on buyouts and recapitalizations of family-owned or closely-held private companies, divisional buyouts of larger companies, and going-private transactions. For more information, please visit www.accel-kkr.com.

The Endurance International Group, Inc. is a privately held provider of online applications and services, including: website creation, hosting and management; domain registration; communication tools; ecommerce services; online marketing and productivity enhancing applications. The Company is currently the fourth largest provider of website creation, hosting and management solutions in the world and ranks among the top 10 for domain names under management worldwide. Endurance targets different customer segments including small and medium-sized businesses, individual consumers, non-profits groups and large enterprises. Endurance supports multiple brands serving more than 600,000 subscription accounts worldwide and manages over one million domain names. Endurance was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Burlington, MA with a second office in Phoenix, AZ.

For more about Accel-KKR, please visit: www.accel-kkr.com.

To learn more, please visit: www.audaxgroup.com.

Find companies that offer hosting. http://www.gawkwire.com/business/accel-kkr_acquires_endurance_international_group.html

Aplus.Net, Debuts Customer Community Forum

2008-10-18T06:00:00-04:00

Overland Park, Kansas - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Internet solutions provider, Aplus.Net, has launched its new Forum, which includes blogging, networking, online chat and communication services, created exclusively for the company's expanding customers.

Ryan Elledge, AChief Operations Officer at plus.net noted, ''Giving our customers every business advantage that technology allows is always a top priority. And the new Aplus.net Forum, with its advanced networking and communications benefits, does that and more.''

Working to continue its tradition as a complete online partner for today's small businesses and online entrepreneurs, Aplus.net is presenting the new forum as a venue for its community of customers - a number that exceeds 200,000 and continues to grow - to trade tips, advice, and insight into everything from building a small business to mastering e-commerce. The Aplus.net Forum also serves as an official location for customers to receive information directly from the company itself.

Mr. Elledge added, ''Like the Aplus.net Blog and Directory, the Aplus.net Forum is the place for Aplus.net customers to network with each other about online business, or whatever they choose to discuss. Whether they have a question about web design, content management systems, sales markets or service providers, this is the place to ask the questions that matter to running and maintaining a successful online business in today's volatile marketplace. Of equal importance, the forum is now the official location for announcements impacting Aplus.net account holders. We encourage all customers to begin utilizing the Aplus.net Forum for notifications of any service-impacting events, should such announcements ever be necessary.''

Earlier this month, Aplus.Net recruited Chief Financial Officer, Rod Siemers, to its senior executive management roster, with over two decades of top-level leadership experience. Mr. Siemers' resume includes international management roles for a Fortune 500 company. Prior to joining Aplus.Net, Mr. Siemers served as CFO for Everest Connections, Inc., a leading communications technology firm where he helped to engineer a dramatic financial turnaround, improving the value of the business by $125 million.

Before his time at Everest, Mr. Siemers spent a decade working in multiple high-level positions for Aquila, Inc., most recently as Vice President of International Finance Management, where he directed corporate financial activities for $1 billion in international gas and electric investments in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. His roles at Aquila also included seats on various board of directors and directorships that involved the oversight of high-level corporate due diligence, cost effectiveness, business opportunity identification, and contract negotiations, as well as the company's multimillion-dollar corporate acquisition and merger strategy.

Mr. Siemers holds a Bachelor's of Science in Accounting and Business Administration from the University of Kansas, where he graduated with top honors. He also holds a variety of other high-level professional certifications from the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado.

Aplus.Net has provided web services since the Internet's commercial start in 1995. Aplus.Net is one of the top ten privately held hosting companies in the United States. Specializing in helping small businesses build a customer base via the Internet, Aplus.Net offers award-winning services that include web hosting and design, dedicated servers, online marketing, e-commerce, domain name registration, and much more. Aplus.Net has been awarded many honors for excellence, including the prestigious CNET Editors' Choice Award, and has been featured in top U.S. business publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, and PC Magazine.

To learn more about the new service, please visit: http://forum.aplus.net.

For more information about Aplus.Net, please visit: www.aplus.net.

Find out about web site hosting services, hosting a website and learn about hosting resources here. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/aplus_net_debuts_customer_community_forum.html

The Planet Enhances Network Nodes

2008-10-16T03:02:00-04:00

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) The Planet has expanded its enterprise class network, by adding new nodes on the East and West Coasts of the United States. The Planet expects to significantly enhance network performance and latency for its customers.

Will Charnock, Vice President of technology for The Planet noted, ''Our international business continues to grow substantially, based on the quality of our world-class network and SAS 70 Type II-compliant data centers, and on the favorable exchange rate. By establishing nodes on both coasts, we'll be able to interconnect with international carriers directly, bypassing third-party networks, which results in increased performance and reduced latency. Customers rely on us for managing their mission-critical IT infrastructures around the clock, and we offer them the widest range of options in the industry, from dedicated or managed hosting to colocation services.''

The nodes are located in Equinix colocation facilities in San Jose, Calif., and Ashburn, Va. By establishing a network presence in these locations, The company expects the nodes to be live in mid-November and will begin transitioning traffic at that time.

In addition, by interconnecting directly with international ISPs in these locations, end-user performance will be improved. Approximately 42 percent of The Planet’s 22,000 customers are international.

Earlier this month, The Planet announced enhancements to its network operations, adding new transit providers with 10Gbps for each, and the make-ready additions for MPLS and IPv6.

Ultimately, The Planet's goal is to provide:

High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance

Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic

Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability

Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses

Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 12 million Web sites worldwide. The Planet Alpha division provides the widest array of self-managed dedicated servers and advanced services backed by 24x7x365 support. The Planet Northstar Managed Hosting division combines a proactive methodology and seasoned IT experts to deliver a fully managed hosting solution, with the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and an enterprise-class network.

For more about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/the_planet_enhances_network_nodes.html

Front Range Attains AIS Parternship Certification

2008-10-16T02:45:00-04:00

Longmont, Colorado - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Front Range Interactive, has gained eBusiness Solutions Partner (eBSP) certification from web technologies and solutions firm, AIS Media.

The company, which opened for business on Oct. 1, delivers Internet solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses throughout Boulder and Larimer counties in Colorado. The company specializes in creating highly functional, professional and interactive websites designed to attract, engage and retain customers.

AIS Media provides solutions to enable small to medium-sized companies to generate greater revenue, improve corporate reputation, and deliver more value to customers.

Front Range Interactive offers a full spectrum of web services that include turnkey and custom website design, web development, secure website hosting, online storefronts and merchant services. The company also offers interactive online marketing capabilities that effectively engage more prospects and retain customers.

Dave Webb, President of Front Range Interactive remarked, ''We are a full-service web enablement firm that offers a single point of contact and accountability for all elements of a company's Internet strategy. We see a tremendous opportunity here in Colorado to turn what is often a time-consuming cost center for many businesses into a means of generating substantially higher revenue and profit-with minimal effort and time.''

Small or medium-sized businesses no longer have to work with multiple contractors to fully harness the power of the Internet to support their business objectives. Companies often have to work separately with a graphic designer, a website developer, or Flash, HTML or XML code specialists in order to get practical functionality and high-level professionalism they want in a website. Such multi-vendor relationships are often time-consuming and cost much more than expected, are harder to manage, and are more challenging for the outcome of a project's success.

AIS Media, Inc. is a developer and marketer of proprietary web applications and professional web services, aimed to meet the needs of small and medium-size businesses. Specific AIS Media products include Excerpo Storefront (www.ExcerpoStorefront.com) and Excerpo Mail (www.ExcerpoMail.com), which enables businesses to conduct e-commerce and run permission-based email marketing programs, respectively. Professional services include interactive media, web site development, credit card merchant services, search engine optimization (SEO) and managed hosting. AIS Media markets its services directly and through its global network of certified partners.

Front Range Interactive offers affordable, end-to-end solutions for establishing and sustaining an effective, results-driven Internet presence, so that companies may concentrate on core business and avoid the high costs and technical challenges of managing an Internet presence in-house.

To learn more about AIS Media, please visit: www.aismedia.com.

For more information about Front Range Interactive, please visit: http://frontrangeinteractive.com.

View vendors that provide dedicated servers and web server rentals.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/front_range_attains_ais_parternship_certification.html

Hosting.com Issues Colocation Report

2008-10-15T12:00:00-04:00

Louisville, Kentucky - (The Hosting News) Hosting.com has unveiled the results of a new survey highlighting 2008 colocation industry trends, indicating that improved reliability is the most important reason for colocation.

Hosting.com surveyed over 200 individuals to develop its first annual study on the colocation industry. Topics include virtualization, disaster recovery, green initiatives, and value-add services. Hosting.com completed the report based on data it collected over a four-week period through surveying its own colocation clients and clients of other colocation providers. Over 200 business and IT executives responded to the survey.

Aaron Hollobaugh, Director of Marketing and Communications for Hosting.com remarked, ''Client engagement is paramount to our success, but the true test is a company's ability to take this information during an economic downturn and continue to provide and develop solutions that are client-centric and relevant to the current marketplace. We are taking these responses and rolling out enhanced value-add services (in December 2008) for our colocation clients.''

Key findings from the survey include: -- 67% of companies choose to colocate their data infrastructure to 'Improve Availability and Reliability,' and 44% expect to see a ROI (Return on Investment) within 24 months. -- 40% of respondents foresee virtualization having an impact on their datacenter space requirements, 21% expect no reduction and 37% are unsure. -- Bandwidth, Security and Redundancy are the three most important factors for most companies when choosing a colocation provider. -- Colocation clients are increasingly interested in managed services provided by colocation providers. 53% of respondents view 'Remote Hands as a Service' as an important value-add service. -- 70% of respondents have a Disaster Recovery plan, but only 46% have a budget to execute on their plans.

The recent economic downturn presents an opportunity for colocation providers to more proactively consult with their clients to help them realize the reduced cost and security of virtualized environments, more effectively estimate their total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investments (ROI) when colocating, and provide the specific services they need from a provider to reduce their internal expenses.

Over 20% of respondents were CEOs or business owners. The demographics of the respondents ranged from companies with as few as two employees to well over 100,000 employees. Diversity was also evident in the revenues of the companies that responded, ranging from under $1 Million to over $100 Billion annually. The 2008 Colocation Industry Trends Report was published in the form of an e-book, and is available for download at Hosting.com.

Since 1996, Hosting.com has provided enterprise colocation, cloud computing, dedicated hosting, managed hosting, disaster recovery and business continuance services to a global customer base demanding a high level of security, reliability and responsiveness. Hosting.com monitors, manages, and enhances the web based platforms of Web 2.0 companies, software as a service providers (SaaS), content distribution networks (CDN), and medium to large enterprises whose web presence is crucial and high availability mandatory. Hosting.com currently operates SAS 70 certified data centers in Louisville, Kentucky; Irvine, California; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts, and is currently expanding into Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia.

For more information about Hosting.com, please visit: www.hosting.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/hosting_com_issues_colocation_report.html

DiscountASP.NET Debuts FTP Management Tools

2008-10-15T12:00:00-04:00

Pasadena, California - (Website Hosting Directory) ASP.NET hosting provider, DiscountASP.NET, has enhanced its security, with new FTP management tools, designed for the Windows 2008 hosting platform service.

Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing at DiscountASP.NET remarked, ''With the launch of these new FTP tools, we demonstrate our commitment to providing our customers with both increased security options and maximum control over their hosting environment. Our goal is to continue to innovate on top of the Windows 2008 stack.''

The FTP Stop/Start tool allows customers to stop and start their FTP service. The FTP IP Restriction tool allows customers to manage an IP whitelist or IP blacklist for FTP service. Finally, the FTP Session tool displays all live FTP connections to a customer’s site and allows the customer to disconnect any of the FTP sessions in real time.

The FTP management tool suite is available in the DiscountASP.NET control panel under a new FTP Manager tab in the IIS Tools section.

In August, the company launched a new hosting add-on option in both US and UK datacenter locations, in its Microsoft SQL 2008 hosting, available to all customers. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is a major update to its enterprise database. Some of the SQL Server 2008 feature enhancements include new data types, such as geospatial data types and date/time data types. In addition, integrated full text search, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), sparse columns, and large user-defined types are improvements that will help drive next-generation data-centric applications.

DiscountASP.NET provides Microsoft Windows hosting, as a Microsoft Gold Certified partner. DiscountASP.NET is one of the first hosts to offer Windows 2008 shared hosting and was recently voted Best ASP.NET Hosting Service in the asp.netPRO Magazine 2008 Readers' Choice poll for the fourth consecutive year. Through strong word-of-mouth and their commitment to ASP.NET and SQL technology, DiscountASP.NET has become the choice for affordable enterprise-class ASP.NET web hosting.

For more information about DiscountASP.NET, please visit: www.discountasp.net.

Secure a dedicated web server and compare dedicated web hosting companies. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/discountasp_net_debuts_ftp_management_tools.html

34SP.com Debuts Anniversary Celebration

2008-10-14T17:00:00-04:00

Manchester, United Kingdom - (The Hosting News) 34SP.com is celebrating its 8th year in the hosting business, by offering free web site hosting, on plans that include a range of accounts, as well as upgrades with additional plan features, for customers.

Stuart Melling, Business Director at 34SP.com offered, ''A lot has changed over those 8 years. We started out on humble Cobalt RaQ servers, which is a far cry from the Quad core systems we use today. We have evolved so much over those years.''

Mr. Melling added, '' What hasn'st changed at 34SP.com is our commitment to reliable web site hosting coupled with professional support. That was our main goal way back when we started in the year 2000. Over those years we have built a solid support team. Everyone on the team has a wealth of experience, everyone has been a webmaster at some stage, even myself. We know the challenges and demands of running a successful web site, and we are here to help whenever our clients need it.

''We couldn'st let the special occasion pass without at least a small thank you to everyone. Seeing as we couldn'st easily send everyone free birthday cake in the mail, we had to come up with something else. As such to celebrate our birthday we are giving away free hosting accounts to everyone. This will last through the next month. All you need to do is buy any domain name from our site, and we will throw in the hosting for free. No hidden charges or set-up fees, completely free for one year.''

Founded in the year 2000, 34SP.com was established with the aim of bridging the gap between sophisticated hosting solutions and affordable prices. 34SP.com has become synonymous with content management focused hosting, reliability, professionalism and value for money. The company is head quartered in central Manchester, England.

To learn more about the new offers, please visit: www.34sp.com/free-hosting.

For more more information about 34SP.com, please visit: www.34sp.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/34sp_com_debuts_anniversary_celebration.html

GoDaddy Debuts New Domain Name Technology

2008-10-14T17:00:00-04:00

Scottsdale, Arizona - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) GoDaddy has debuted a technological development that allows for registration of domain names, and converting them quickly into a chosen web presence.

According to GoDaddy, SmartSpace may be used to automatically create an interactive web site, a blog, an email address, a podcast, a photo gallery, a video showcase or a chat room without having to be the least bit tech savvy.

Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of Go Daddy remarked, ''This is a game changer. It really levels the Internet for everyone. SmartSpace technology binds onto the domain name itself, transforming something as simple as a name into one place where all your favorite elements can live online. Your family photos, your business blog, your resume, your kids' video or your social page - it's all there. SmartSpace is smart enough to be pretty much whatever you want it to be.''

The new technology is intuitive enough to quickly follow your commands. The SmartSpace process only requires you to answer a few basic questions online after registering a domain name. Within mere minutes of telling SmartSpace what you want, it automatically appears.

Go Daddy developers created SmartSpace technology with novices in mind, but the innovation gives tech-minded users an advantage beyond time savings. The state-of-the-art SmartSpace technology pools users' favorite online activities into one place, Go Daddy's exclusive SocialSpace. This allows users to tap social networking sites, like Facebook, as well as display their favorite RSS feeds. This consolidates a user's collection of online identities into one Web site address. Now, instead of giving family and friends multiple links to track you, they only need to remember a single address you create.

Randy Henniger who created www.Sun-Up-Solar.com after subscribing to SmartSpace within days of it being available to the public noted, ''It's easy, it saves time, I don't need a Webmaster to walk me through it and it doesn't cost a lot.''

Mr. Parsons added, ''It's pretty easy to see why SmartSpace works so well. Who doesn't need more time in their life?''

Go Daddy is a provider of services that are designed to enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has more than 31 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world's largest hostname provider according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2007, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi. GoDaddy.com has also been honored by various industry organizations and publications as Best Registrar and Best Hosting Company already this year. In 2007, Go Daddy was named Arizona's Most Innovative Company and Business Leader of the Year.

For more information about SmartSpace please visit: www.godaddy.com/gdshop/domains/show_me_popup.asp.

To learn more about GoDaddy, please visit: www.godaddy.com.

Click here to see dedicated server hosts and pricing plans. http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/godaddy_debuts_new_domain_name_technology.html

UK2 Celebrates 10th Anniversary, with Specials

2008-10-13T03:23:00-04:00

London, United Kingdom - (The Hosting News) Web hosting company, UK2.net, is celebrating its tenth year as a hosting provider, with special purchase promotions.

Having been founded by Danish entrepreneur Bo Bendtsen, the service began as a provider of low cost Domain Names. Over the past decade UK2.net has grown into one of the UK’s biggest and most successful hosting providers, now boasting an impressive portfolio of hosting services which now includes Web Hosting, E-commerce, Reseller Solutions and Dedicated Servers.

Ditlev Bredahl, Managing Director / CEO of UK2 noted, ''Everyone at UK2.net is proud to be part of the company at such an exciting time, celebrating ten years of being in business. We have had a very successful 2008 so far, so seeing out the year with a birthday celebration and ten weeks of special offers is going to be incredible.''

The UK2 birthday celebration includes a 10% off all purchases promotion for the duration of the birthday weekend, then every week for the next ten weeks there will be a different tenth birthday related offer or giveaway. Each week details of the new offers will be posted on the UK2 Blog (www.uk2.net).

During the summer, UK2 debuted the launch of a newly enhanced, instant domain look up tool, as part of a larger project, including a complete revamp of the UK2 order process. Intended to modernize the way customers buy hosting products and services, the new domain look up tool allows customers to search for multiple domains, and make changes to their shopping basket, in a single browser window. It also uses Ajax technology for searching instantly - beginning the search as soon as you start typing. All of this means that if a customer wants to register multiple Domain Names and multiple types of TLD in a single order, they can do this in a fast and efficient way by using the new UK2 domain look up.

UK2.net has been a significant player in the British and European hosting markets since 1998, and is the founder brand of the UK2 Group. UK2 Group provides domain name registration and web hosting services to many global customers through its family of hosting brands - UK2.net, midPhase, 10TB.com, Resell.biz, WingSix, AN Hosting, US2.net, Autica, Supreme Support and Dotable. The group operates its services out of several state of the art, multi million pound data centres and are committed to providing reliable, secure and great value products and services underpinned with excellent support.

To learn more about UK.Net, please visit: www.uk2.net.

Find companies that offer hosting. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/uk2_celebrates_10th_anniversary_with_specials.html

Paid to Host Drowning Pool Rock Band

2008-10-13T03:07:00-04:00

Boston, Massachusetts - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Web hosting and services provider, Paid, Inc., has entered into an agreement with multi-platinum Texas hard rock band Drowning Pool, to offer interactive VIP packages which are designed to enhance its concert going experiences for fans.

VIP packages include meet & greets and photo opportunities with band members, early entry passes, special merchandise, autographed collectibles and more. VIP packages are available at www.DrowningPool.com. PAID, Inc. makes this announcement as the band readies for its new co-headlining tour with Saliva beginning on October 17 (see itinerary below). This wide variety of new opportunities and online content is designed to strengthen ties directly with the fans and comes as DROWNING POOL's latest single, "37 Stitches," is advancing up the active rock charts. Drowning Pool's CD, Full Circle is attracting new listeners and has ignited longtime followers through its extensive radio play and the live touring experience.

Keith Garde, Celebrity Services President at Paid, Inc. remarked, ''Drowning Pool has created their own brand of completely modern rock, which is especially evident with Full Circle. As another of their songs climbs the charts, the timing is outstanding for this boost in their merchandising, fan club and online marketing. We love this band and are really excited to have the opportunity to help them build their brand and their relationships with their fans.''

Paid, Inc. celebrity services, excels at building unique brands and associated collateral materials that resonate with each band's fan base and providing special content to the devoted supporters.

Allen Kovac, founder of Tenth Street Entertainment and Eleven Seven Music, the band's management company and label noted,''Our approach at Eleven Seven Music and Tenth Street Entertainment is to identify each band's fans and find every way to reach out to them personally with unique experiences and value proposition. By associating with Paid, Inc., we will deliver a whole new level of interaction, products and services to enhance the Drowning Pool experience.''

DROWNING POOL has unveiled a new online look and feel with the launch of its redesigned website and interactive fan club which offers an array of activities, information and downloadable content, providing the opportunity for fans to interface directly with the band. A new line of merchandise will be available on tour, through retailers and on the website. Additionally, Drowning Pool and Paid, Inc., are collaborating to develop mobile promotions such as exclusive contests, online sponsorships and mobile advertising.

To visit DROWNING POOL's new site, please go to: www.DrowningPool.com

To see DROWNING POOL with Saliva, see tour dates below: -0- DROWNING POOL/SALIVA TOUR SCHEDULE -- FALL 2008 10/17-11/22 with Tantric, and Jet Black Stare OCTOBER 17 Saint Petersburg, FL Jannus Landing 18 Daytona Beach, FL Destination Daytona 20 Columbia, SC Headliners 21 Goose Creek, SC The Dive 22 Jacksonville, NC Hooligans 24 Providence, RI Dunkin' Donuts Center 26 Lorrain, OH Black River Landing 28 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall 29 Flint, MI The Machine Shop NOVEMBER 1 Detroit, MI The Fillmore 2 Springfield, IL Illinois State Fairgrounds 5 San Antonio, TX Scout Bar 6 Pharr, TX Graham Central Station 7 Beaumont, TX Scout Bar 8 Houston, TX Scout Bar Corpus Christi, TX The Pavilion at Concrete 9 Street 11 Lubbock, TX Wild West 22 Galamis Beach, CA Galamis Beach

Paid, Inc.'s celebrity services provides famous people with official web sites and fan club services that include e-commerce storefronts, ticketing and fan experience packages, and web site content. The Company also sponsors autograph signing events and other sports marketing services for sports clientele. Using proprietary patent-pending technology, Paid's patent-pending AuctionInc brand shipping calculation and auction management software and services are utilized to streamline online auctions, ecommerce and web site development and hosting.

For more information about Paid web hosting services, please visit: www.paid.com.

Delve into the world of managed hosting providers.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/paid_to_host_drowning_pool_rock_band.html

iWeb Group Launches New Blog

2008-10-10T02:31:00-04:00

Quebec, Canada - (The Hosting News) iWeb Group Inc. and subsidiary of iWeb Technologies, has launched a new blog designed as an industry benchmark, to strengthen the firm's community positioning and standing.

iWeb was one of the first Internet hosts to use the blog as a means of communication with its customers, with the first article posted on the French version of their blog in February 2001, more than seven years ago.

More of a transformation than an update, the new blog is streamlined for rapid browsing and is divided into three main sections, in line with the interests of the various audiences. The items will be categorized as either; a) iWeb news, including press releases and anything new about the company, b) a ticket or post of technical interest for web developers and systems administrators and c) articles and news related to the web hosting industry in general.

A section dedicated to the 'system status' will be visible at all times on the blog's pages. This section keeps clients informed in real-time of any emergency, maintenance, intervention or any other occurrence that may affect one or more aspects of iWeb services. Once an event (even minor) arises, an article is immediately posted to inform customers and provide as much detail as possible.

The value of the blog is its use as a means of communication with all audiences iWeb, friends, customers, partners (and sometimes even competitors). With the clear objective of 'opening and facilitating dialogue' rather than just ?sending? or disseminating information.

Earlier this month, iWeb opened its new head office, located on on Nuns' Island, housing a completely redundant IT center. Eric Chouinard, President of iWeb noted, ''The new headquarters addresses two major objectives; to provide a high quality colocation infrastructure for our clients, and to reunite almost all of our employees by providing a unique working environment. Until recently, iWeb's 120 employees were spread out in our three data centers.''

Nicole Menard, Parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade and Minister of Tourism, remarked, ''This new step in your young history reflects the energy that has marked your growth.''

This is the third building for iWeb, who are already thinking about the fourth according to Mr. Chouinard. The former headquarters, located at 3185 Hochelaga, will remain staffed to fully support the 1800 servers on site. The second center, located in the Montreal borough of Saint-Leonard, has a total capacity of 12 000 dedicated servers and 105 colocation cabinets.

Gerald Tremblay, Mayor of Montreal added, ''If iWeb is now recognized as a world leader in the field of web hosting, it is thanks to the perseverance of its leaders who managed to avoid the pitfalls of the dot com implosion while steering their business towards promising growth markets.''

iWeb is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V : IWB), and is one of the largest Canadian providers of Internet hosting services and IT infrastructure. With three secure data centers, all in Montreal, iWeb has carved out an enviable position on the international scene with more than 60% of its revenues from abroad.

iWeb recently announced plans to add three new carriers, the addition of these three new transit providers will mean better diversity, redundancy and reachability for all our customers and partners, including:

- T-Systems / Deutsche Telekom
- 3Men@Work / Bell Peering
- Level 3 Communications

The company attained ranking among Profit Magazine's top 100 Canadian companies, based on revenue growth over the past 5 years. From 2002 to 2007, the company's revenues have gone from 1.35 million to 9.82 million as of October 1st 2007, an increase of 627%; enough for iWeb to make its entry into the 100th position on the annual ranking. The PROFIT 100 is the annual ranking which rates the top 100 Canadian companies based on the percentage of their revenue growth over a 5-year span. Produced by the business magazine PROFIT, 2008 marks the 20th edition of the ranking.

iWeb is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V : IWB), and is one of the largest Canadian providers of Internet hosting services and IT infrastructure. With three secure data centers, all in Montreal, iWeb has carved out an enviable position on the international scene with more than 60% of its revenues from abroad. Founded in 1996 in Montreal, iWeb has recently completed a $22M financing agreement with investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. iWeb now has over 120 full-time employees and more than 17 000 customers in 145 countries.

To learn more, please visit: www.iweb.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/iweb_group_launches_new_blog.html

Web Hosting Promotion for E-Commerce, at Webplus Shop

2008-10-10T02:17:00-04:00

Aberdeen, South Dakota - (Website Hosting Directory) Web hosting firm, Webplus, Inc., has launched its $1.00 ecommerce web hosting promotion, where businesses can receive the first month of ecommerce website hosting services, for $1.00 - on all new accounts.

New websites with Webplus Shop packages include support for up to 150 products and product support with a cancel-anytime guarantee. Enter promo code: SELLONLINE at checkout to receive this promotion.

Webplus Shop was created as an easy, affordable ecommerce web hosting solution, for individuals and businesses building an online store quickly, as well as selling or showcasing worldwide. Ecommerce hosting packages start at $14.95 per month with no ''percent of sale'' fees like many online auction sites.

All ecommerce web hosting packages are ad-free and come with a domain name so people can find the store fast. Video tutorials make learning how to use the online store very easy and no programming knowledge is required. Webplus Shop support staff is just a phone call away if there is ever an issue. Need to start selling online fast? Webplus Shop staff can set up your ecommerce website and have it online and selling quickly.

Webplus Shop displays products, processes orders and keeps track of inventory on the back end and may be added to an existing website or may act as a stand-alone business website. The Webplus Shop shopping cart software has been in continuous development by Webplus, Inc. since 1996 with a focus on ease of use and affordability. No programming knowledge is required to set up an online store or to make routine changes. Webplus Shop features affordable packages starting at under $15 per month including the software, secure, US-based hosting with 99.9% uptime and domain names. Webplus doesn't require any percentage of sales. Webplus also does not outsource any portion of its services or customer support.

To learn more, please visit: www.webplusshop.com.

Managed dedicated server hosting - check here for options. http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/web_hosting_promotion_for_e-commerce_at_webplus_shop.html

Cartika Offers New Linux (HAL) Solution

2008-10-10T12:00:00-04:00

Ontario, Canada - (The Hosting News) Cartika Hosting, has developed a new High Availability Linux (HAL) clustered hosting service, offering a range of targeted solutions, in addition to a streamlined web interface solution.

The new HAL services feature completely redundant clustered architecture with additional load balancing of all services within the cluster. Complimented by predictive failure analysis, Countinous Data Protection and enterprise grade Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus features.

Andrew Rouchotas, Cartika's CEO explains that the unique aspect of HAL is that it resolves most common issues associated with shared hosting. By spreading loads over multiple nodes, HAL allows websites to burst well beyond normal CPU and RAM allocations without overloading servers. Additionally, service is more reliable as a downed server node will not impact service availability.
Mr. Rouchotas noted, ''HAL solves the problems typically associated with shared hosting by spreading services and loads across a fleet of load balanced nodes. We are able to dramatically increase the resource availability and capacity to any given website hosted. Additionally, we are able to increase reliability by building physical server redundancy into all services.''

A Pressure Release System ensures that the system will never become overloaded during periods of very large bursts by Quing request and also acts as an indicator for a requirement to add additional resources (i.e. nodes) to a given array without resulting in cluster instability.

Users get real multiple domain hosting allowing granual email, ftp, stats and web options control for each domain and DNS zone, as well as an Ajax based webmail solution powered by Roundcube. Spam is essentially eliminated with Mailfoundry Enterprise grade spam appliance integrated into users control panels and included for free with any HAL package.

HAL is a premium hosting service transcending industries, sectors and company size. With their range of services, Cartika specializes in providing small to medium sized and enterprise businesses the very best in high availability web hosting, complete with service that includes security firewalls, load balanced architecture, redundant storage arrays, continuous data protection, mail foundry anti-virus and anti-spam protection, and much more.

Mr. Rouchotas added, ''The TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) analysis for HAL is very strong for any business serious about their website performance, availability, and scalability. For $100 a month, a business can acquire high availability hosting for all of their core services. The solution is more reliable and robust then a dedicated server and solves the typical problems associated with shared hosting environments. Additional value adds as found in the redundant, end user accessible backup solution as well as the integrated Mailfoundry anti-spam/virus appliance round off this offering and positively impact a company's TCO calculations.''
Founded in Toronto in May 2002, Cartika Inc. is an established Application Hosting utilizing advanced clustering technologies, providing advanced web hosting facilities, combined with several best of breed Open Source and Commercial Applications. Cartika caters to businesses of all sizes providing shared, reseller and dedicated hosting solutions on Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD operating systems supporting a multitude of solutions, languages and development platforms, including Coldfusion, Sharepoint, MS Exchange, CRM, eCommerce and CMS. Market differentiators include automated, multi-platform, managed clustered solutions allowing companies to scale across platforms, services and across a potentially infinite number of nodes from central control interfaces.

For more information on new High Availability Linux (HAL) hosting, please visit: www.cartikahosting.com/HAL.

To learn more about Cartika Hosting, please visit: www.cartikahosting.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/cartika_offers_new_linux_hal_solution.html

The Planet Unveils Alpha Bargain Bin Offering

2008-10-09T02:55:00-04:00

Houston, Texas - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) The Planet has debuted a new permanent addition providing customers with significant value for IT infrastructure planning, according to the new offering.

Planet Alpha Bargain Bin is a new real-time searchable repository features overstocked and clearance dedicated servers in a variety of configurations. The servers are available on a revolving basis, with prices starting at $45 per month.

Urvish Vashi, General Manager for dedicated servers noted, ''We have more than 22,000 customers worldwide, so The Planet's size and scale allow us to purchase thousands of name-brand servers at preferred discount pricing. Many of these servers are now available at even deeper discounted rates in the Bargain Bin, and they come from each of our six SAS 70 Type II-certified data centers. Customers still receive the world-class service and support they expect from The Planet, backed by our enterprise-class network.''

Bargain Bin servers are selected from the Planet Alpha dedicated server fleet, and they continuously rotate based on availability, customer demand and data center space. Customers who visit the Bargain Bin can search for servers by processor and drive-controller type, hard disk space, memory capacity and price. The servers come with The Planet's full range of software options, including operating system and control panel choices. In addition, every server purchased from the Bargain Bin is backed by The Planet’s industry-leading Service Level Agreement, 24/7 support, and world-class network and data centers.

To supplement the administration and maintenance of their servers, customers can add Alpha Advanced Services to any Bargain Bin server. Services include Alpha Servers Monitoring, Alpha Servers Security and Alpha Servers Administration. Prices start at $25 per month per server. Customers are encouraged to visit the Bargain Bin frequently, as new servers are constantly added, while others run out of stock. Servers must be purchased as configured, and changes cannot be made to existing hardware for the life of the server.
Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide:

High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance

Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic

Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability

Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses

Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 12 million web sites worldwide. The Planet Alpha division provides the widest array of self-managed dedicated servers and advanced services backed by 24x7x365 support. The Planet Northstar Managed Hosting division combines a proactive methodology and seasoned IT experts to deliver a fully managed hosting solution. For additional information, please visit: www.planetalpha.com/bargain-bin.

To learn more about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Research, evaluate and learn more about hosting a website and find webmaster resources here. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/the_planet_unveils_alpha_bargain_bin_offering.html

The Planet Consolidates Houston and Dallas Networks

2008-10-08T04:37:00-04:00

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) The Planet has debuted what it terms as significant improvements to its enterprise-class network, in order to consolidate its Houston and Dallas network operations.

The consolidation is intended to provide increased reliability, better scalability and a more consistent experience for the company's 22,000 customers. It also provides a common network policy across the company's six world-class data centers in the two cities. new promotions that offer discounts on a selection of dedicated servers and new technologies.

In preparation for next-generation technologies, The Planet's network is now IPv6-ready and is running MPLS for greater traffic engineering and management, as well as enhanced IP services.

Will Charnock, Vice President of technology at The Planet explained, ''In survey-after-survey, customers tell us they choose The Planet based on the quality and reliability of our network and data centers. Both comprise the central nervous system operations for our customers, who rely on us to operate their mission-critical IT infrastructures around the clock. During the past two years, we've performed significant upgrades to deliver even better quality network capabilities. As we prepare for future technologies that will be important to our customers, these upgrades represent strategic investments that provide them with access to the highest-quality network in our industry.''

Over the past two years, the company has continued to advance the quality of its network to provide an even better customer experience and to improve its operational efficiencies. Following is an overview of the key improvements:

Interconnection Upgrades: The company upgraded all of its major carriers to 10Gbps connections, providing industry-leading network speeds.
Port Upgrades: 10Gbps port upgrades were added in the Houston data centers to AboveNet, NTT, Level3 and AT&T, expanding total capacity and enhancing performance.
Redundant Links: The company installed redundant 10Gbps links between its Dallas network and Houston's H1 and H2 data centers, as well as between these two data center locations.
Router Upgrades: All core network routers have been upgraded to Foundry XMRs, while all customer-facing routers are now Cisco 4500 Series routers.

Increased Capacity: The company increased its Internet capacity in Houston to 65Gbps, which offers greater network speed and performance.

Private Peering: The Houston network can now leverage the company's direct peering connections, reducing latency and providing faster performance to end-users.

IPv6-Ready: IPv6 provides an almost infinite number of addresses. Customers can rest assured The Planet is prepared to deal with the threat of IPv4 address exhaustion.
MPLS Ready: MPLS provides higher network performance for customers and more granular traffic management across the company's network. In addition, it lays the foundation for offering advanced IP services in the future.

Ultimately, The Planet's goal is to provide:

High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance

Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic

Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability

Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses

Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet hosts over 22,000 small and medium-size businesses and 7.7 million Web sites worldwide. The Planet Alpha division provides the widest array of self-managed dedicated servers and advanced services backed by 24x7x365 support. The Planet Northstar Managed Hosting division combines a proactive methodology and seasoned IT experts to deliver a fully managed hosting solution. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses.

For more information about the promotion, please visit: www.theplanet.com/dedicated-servers/server-specials.

To learn more about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/the_planet_consolidates_houston_and_dallas_networks.html

Aplus.Net Enhances Senior Management Team

2008-10-08T04:17:00-04:00

Overland Park, Kansas - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Internet solutions provider, Aplus.Net, has recruited Chief Financial Officer, Rod Siemers, to its senior executive management roster, with over two decades of top-level leadership experience, including includes international management roles.

Prior to joining Aplus.Net, Mr. Siemers served as CFO for Everest Connections, Inc., a leading communications technology firm where he helped to engineer a dramatic financial turnaround, improving the value of the business by $125 million.

Before his time at Everest, Mr. Siemers spent a decade working in multiple high-level positions for Aquila, Inc., most recently as Vice President of International Finance Management, where he directed corporate financial activities for $1 billion in international gas and electric investments in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. His roles at Aquila also included seats on various board of directors and directorships that involved the oversight of high-level corporate due diligence, cost effectiveness, business opportunity identification, and contract negotiations, as well as the company's multimillion-dollar corporate acquisition and merger strategy.

Phillip Spencer, CEO at Aplus.Net noted, ''We're proud to announce the addition of Rod Siemers to our management team. Rod's impressive background brings even more talent to an already world-class management team. We're confident that his leadership and expertise will help usher Aplus.Net into a new era of even greater success for our company.''
Mr. Siemers holds a Bachelor's of Science in Accounting and Business Administration from the University of Kansas, where he graduated with top honors. He also holds a variety of other high-level professional certifications from the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado.

In August, the company expanded its service offerings, with the WebImage design service, including a full assortment of add-on options. Specially designed to facilitate online business growth, the new features were designed to provide WebImage's customers with the ability to add fundamental business functionality to their small business-oriented websites. Foremost among these upgrades are a basic shopping cart to support eCommerce functionality and a company logo service to help kick off marketing and branding efforts.

Aplus.Net has provided web services since the Internet's commercial start in 1995. Aplus.Net is one of the top ten privately held hosting companies in the United States. Specializing in helping small businesses build a customer base via the Internet, Aplus.Net offers award-winning services that include web hosting and design, dedicated servers, online marketing, e-commerce, domain name registration, and much more. Aplus.Net has been awarded many honors for excellence, including the prestigious CNET Editors' Choice Award, and has been featured in top U.S. business publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, and PC Magazine.

For more information about Aplus.Net, please visit: www.aplus.net.

Research, evaluate and learn more about hosting a website and find webmaster resources here. http://www.gawkwire.com/business/aplus_net_enhances_senior_management_team.html

DiscountASP.NET Unveils Microsoft URL Rewrite Module

2008-10-07T03:09:00-04:00

Pasadena, California - (The Hosting News) - October 7, 2008 - Hosting and SQL hosting provider, DiscountASP.NET, has introduced Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 on their Windows 2008 hosting platform solution.

Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing at DiscountASP.NET noted, ''Delivering on our goal to provide customers with maximum control over their hosting environment, we now offer a powerful URL Rewrite feature on our Windows 2008 hosting platform. We are sure that this feature will be a popular tool, especially in enabling search engine friendly URLs for dynamic applications.''

The URL Rewrite Module provides a rule-based rewriting mechanism for manipulating requested URLs before they are processed by the web server. This module can make rewriting decisions based on server variables and HTTP headers, and can also handle logic that use regular expressions. In addition, the new module can perform redirects, send custom responses, and abort requests.

As a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, DiscountASP.NET is an innovative global leader in Microsoft Windows hosting. DiscountASP.NET is one of the first hosts to offer Windows 2008 shared hosting, SQL 2008 hosting, and was voted Best ASP.NET Hosting Service in the asp.netPRO Magazine 2008 Readers' Choice poll for four consecutive years. Through strong word-of-mouth and their commitment to ASP.NET and SQL technology, DiscountASP.NET has become the choice for affordable enterprise-class ASP.NET web hosting in the US and UK.

For more information about DiscountASP.NET, please visit: www.discountasp.net.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/697.html

GoDaddy Debuts Portable Hosted Microsoft Exchange Plans

2008-10-07T11:55:45-04:00

Scottsdale, Arizona - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) - October 7, 2008 - GoDaddy has debuted a new service offering SMBs access to hosted e-mail and calendar, as well as support for mobile devices.

GoDaddy.com is delivering mobile and group e-mail plans with Microsoft Outlook, powered by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) improve worker productivity and communications regardless of physical location. The new e-mail plans from GoDaddy.com, including Personal Outlook, Outlook with Mobile, and Group Outlook with Mobile, give SMBs the ability to manage all of their online services from one place.

GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons remarked, ''We have many customers who currently use Microsoft Office Outlook for their e-mail. It was only natural that we expanded our offerings to include mobile and group e-mail plans with Microsoft Outlook. Our goal is to be a one-stop shop for every customer. Business owners who want the advantage of Microsoft Outlook e-mail plans can rely on us, without worrying about system maintenance.''

GoDaddy.com's e-mail plans allow small business owners to focus on improving the productivity of their business, instead of dealing with IT issues, by offering the following benefits:

- On-the-go access to calendar, address books, tasks and e-mail on virtually any device, including the Web and mobile devices, as well as computers in the office or at home

- Better collaboration through appointment scheduling, assigning tasks, delegating access to e-mail and a common address book - all core features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Entourage 2008 - No upfront hardware and software costs for these services, which often can prevent SMBs from realizing the benefits of corporate-grade IT services and create challenges associated with help desk support and ongoing system maintenance

John Zanni, General Manager of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft remarked, ''This announcement with GoDaddy.com represents an exciting opportunity for business owners to leverage the resources of two industry leaders who understand the needs of businesses and their employees. By expanding our existing partnership, GoDaddy.com is now providing its customers with the benefits of mobile e-mail and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, in addition to the reliable infrastructure and support that has made GoDaddy.com one of the top hosting services providers worldwide.''

Go Daddy is a provider of services that are designed to enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has more than 31 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world's largest hostname provider according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2007, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi. GoDaddy.com has also been honored by various industry organizations and publications as Best Registrar and Best Hosting Company already this year. In 2007, Go Daddy was named Arizona's Most Innovative Company and Business Leader of the Year.

To learn more about GoDaddy, please visit: www.godaddy.com.

Find out about web site hosting services, hosting a website and learn about hosting resources here.
http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/696.html

LeaseWeb Names New Security Officer

2008-10-06T14:31:06-04:00

Amsterdam, The Netherlands - (The Hosting News) - October 6, 2008 - LeaseWeb has appointed the co-founder of INHOPE, the European Association of Internet Hotlines, Alex de Joode, as its Security Officer.

As Security Officer, Mr. de Joode will engage in combating cybercrime as well as monitoring the extensive hosting network of LeaseWeb. In this role he will report directly to the Management Team of LeaseWeb.

As Security Officer De Joode will be responsible for Abuse Handling, Information Security, Business Continuity Management and Regulatory Affairs. Mr. De Joode noted, ''I have a lot of experience in abuse policy and handling abuse. But security is also a real hobby of mine. I am delighted that LeaseWeb offers me the opportunity to be involved in security in the widest sense of the word.''

The new Security Officer will also maintain contact with all the authorities involved, such as the police, Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) and organizations for the protection of intellectual property. He will also supervise ISO 27001 and SAS70 certifications.

When Mr. De Joode saw the vacancy of Security Officer at LeaseWeb, he responded immediately, noting, ''The international working environment at LeaseWeb appealed to me particularly. LeaseWeb is growing fast worldwide, so chances are that I can do something for LeaseWeb in the field of hosting outside of Amsterdam one day.''

The IT technical and legal knowledge and experience De Joode brings to LeaseWeb provide him with a proper basis for his new duties. Mr. De Joode explained, ''I am familiar with UNIX, Linux, Open BSD, network and system management, for instance, and I studied law at the University of Amsterdam. Obviously, I am particularly interested in the interface between technology and law and I expect to be able to indulge in this extensively at LeaseWeb.''

Before joining LeaseWeb Alex De Joode worked as a Senior Systems Administrator with Proteon VIS, a web developer from Delft. He also worked for seven years as a Senior Network Architect with the Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (Terena). Mr. De Joode describes his involvement in founding INHOPE as a contribution in the Internet industry to the balance between combating cybercrime and protecting freedom of speech. Alex de Joode started his career as an Electronic Banking Specialist with ABN AMRO Bank.

LeaseWeb is an international supplier of hosting products and services that specializes in both Microsoft and Linux, and focuses primarily on the professional market. The company is among the top 20 hosting providers in the world and provides services such as web hosting, dedicated hosting, colocated hosting, VPS and streaming, as well as technical support. LeaseWeb owns a Cisco-powered network offering a bandwidth of over 210 Gbps, which extends across five data centers in the Amsterdam region via the major telecom carriers. LeaseWeb is also present on Internet exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Frankfurt, New York, Vienna , Stockholm, Warsaw, Zurich, Prague and Madrid. Founded in 1997, hosting provider LeaseWeb now manages 11,000 servers. Its customers include Starbucks, Hyves, Telegraaf Media Groep, Koninklijke Joh. Ensched, PricewaterhouseCoopers, AVRO, Direct Wonen, and University.

To learn more, please visit: www.leaseweb.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/695.html

NetDepot Debuts VPS Services

2008-10-06T14:16:15-04:00

Atlanta, Georgia - (Website Hosting Directory) - October 6, 2008 - Web hosting provider, NetDepot, has debuted the launch of its new Virtual Private Servers (VPS), designed as a cost effective solution for customers interested in the server market.

Virtualization is considered a great way to save money, energy and to optimize the space available. VPS systems have the advantage over low end servers because they are on higher end multi core machines which have a fully raided drive array for the same price. With the addition of the VPS offerings, NetDepot will no longer sell their P3 line of dedicated servers.

Jeff Hinkle, President of Net Depot remarked, ''Virtualization is an important part of the web hosting business and we believe this additional product will take NetDepot's offering to the next level. VPS is recommended to customers looking for a low price option with high quality product and performance.''

To help the launch, the new VPS system is being offered for $1 per month for the first 2 months through December 31, 2008. The offer is valid for one VPS order per customer through December 31, 2008. After two months, the monthly fee reverts to regular published prices. The offer is not valid to customers already receiving hosting services at the AtlantaNAP datacenter.

NetDepot's VPS system comes standard with HyperVM Management Portal, reboot access, Automated OS reloads and LX Admin control panel. Each VPS offering comes with the customers' choice of operating systems including CentOS, Fidora, Gentoo, Ubuntu and Debian. Customers are also able to upgrade their control panel to cPanel for $10 per month and can purchase additional IP addresses for $1 per IP per month, as part of the new trio of different offering levels.

For more information about NetDepot, please visit: www.netdepot.com.

Discover great new offers and options for dedicated server web hosting here.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/694.html

RankSense SEO Software Suite, Offered by Superb

2008-10-03T02:49:00-04:00

Vancouver, British Columbia - (The Hosting News) SuperbHosting.net, global web hosting, managed dedicated server, shared web hosting and e-commerce hosting solutions provider, is offering Nemedia's new RankSense SEO Management Suite.

(Curtis) R. Curtis, Sr. VP, Sales and Marketing at Superb Internet noted, ''As one of the oldest hosting providers and as someone who has been doing Internet marketing since the early 90s, I understand that one of the greatest obstacles to keeping long-term hosting clients is their success online. While most hosting companies focus on ensuring their hosting services are successful for their clients, we are taking our clients to the next level; ensuring their complete success online. Much of their success is directly tied to their ability to effectively market themselves in the search engines, which is critical to any online company driving visitors to their website. Using RankSense, our hosting clients can now easily and affordably get to the top of the search engines and succeed online.''

According to the company, with over 85% of all website traffic coming from search engines, better rankings can make or break any site. In order to be successful, it only makes sense for website owners to develop their sites to rank better - yet many sites are not optimized for search engines. With RankSense's easy-to-use, step-by-step search engine optimization software featuring more than 12 highly integrated tools, it is easier than ever to increase the quantity and quality of traffic from search engines.

Hamlet Batista, Founder and President of RankSense remarked, ''We are pleased to welcome SuperbHosting.net to our partner program and are extremely confident that SuperbHosting.net will find that when their hosting clients use our SEO management software, their success online will improve drastically, thereby increasing their revenues by improving customer retention and adding additional hosting requirements.''

RankSense SEO Management software was developed by Nemedia, S.A. and designed by developers with an internet marketing background. RankSense offers a fully featured, integrated suite of SEO tools that simplify the process of organically ranking web pages within the major search engines easier than ever before for the keywords most relevant and profitable to the user. RankSense navigates the user through the necessary steps needed to improve natural search engine rankings in an ethical way.

Since 1996, Superb Internet has been consistently rated as one of the very best web hosts by all web host rating agencies, such as Web Hosting Magazine, in all areas, especially customer support and reseller services. Superb Internet provides a complete range of managed web hosting solutions, from virtual shared web hosting through to high-volume, mission-critical dedicated server solutions. SuperbHosting.net's core focus is customer service, and continuous service improvement, with offices and 24-hour/365-day operations in McLean, VA, Tukwila, WA, and Vancouver, BC, serving customers in over 150 countries worldwide.

To learn more about RankSense, please visit: www.ranksense.com.

For more information about Superb Internet, please visit: www.superbhosting.net.

Find companies that offer hosting. http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/ranksense_seo_software_suite_offered_by_superb.html

Network Solutions Premieres PPC Solution

2008-10-03T02:12:00-04:00

Herndon, Virginia - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) Network Solutions has debuted the launch of its new Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising enhancements, including optimization of keywords through a new self-learning software.

Knut Svendsen, Director of Product Marketing for Network Solutions remarked, ''Although our current pay per click services were generating thousands of lucrative leads for our customers, we recognized the potential for improvement. Innovations like our new keyword optimization software will benefit all of our PPC campaign management customers, while other enhancements like our geo-targeting capabilities can help smaller businesses to use their PPC budgets with greater efficiency.''

The software monitors crucial Web activity around the clock, automatically translating the data into actionable improvements for the keyword selections and campaign performance for Network Solutions' customers. The enhanced pay per click management program provides customers with 24-hour access to detailed, daily campaign performance reporting, allowing them to monitor and evaluate their pay per click advertising investment whenever they choose.

The improved PPC management program also features sophisticated geo-targeting capabilities that enable customers to hone in their PPC campaign impressions on specific geographic markets. Phone call leads have been integrated into the pay per click management system as well, with features that allow call recording and detailed reporting of phone lead data. These added features move the service into the PPA (Pay Per Action) realm, enabling clients to generate leads from emails, forms, landing pages, and phone calls.

Existing features of Network Solutions' PPC management services include expert campaign consulting, PPC advertising budget optimization and lead tracking. The actual day-to-day management of the campaigns is handled by Network Solutions' in-house experts, giving customers the ability to review performance reporting, follow tracked leads and increase or decrease their PPC budgets at any time.

Network Solutions provides e-business solutions and domain name registration services, including a full range of online services to small and medium enterprises, with web hosting, web design, e-commerce software, search engine marketing, SSL certificates, e-mail services and domain name registration. Network Solutions draws on more than 29 years of experience to make it simple and affordable for customers to build and manage an online presence through a one-stop web Solutions provider.

For more information about the new paid search engine marketing enhancements, please visit: www.networksolutions.com/pay-per-click/index.jsp.

To learn more about Network Solutions, please visit: www.networksolutions.com.

Research, evaluate and learn more about hosting a website and find webmaster resources here.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/network_solutions_premieres_ppc_solution.html

Layered Technologies Upgrades Network

2008-10-02T03:10:00-04:00

Plano, Texas - (The Hosting News) Layered Technologies, Inc. has recently completed network upgrades in order to handle the complex requirements of enterprise-class customers for traditional and virtualization solution.

With an eye toward simultaneously positioning Layered Tech to effectively manage its rapid growth, the network investments include expanding its number of carriers so that customers have a superior blend of Internet pathways. Level 3 Communications, Global Crossing and Sprint give Layered Tech's customers strong overseas access, while SAVVIS, Internap and Time Warner provide U.S. Internet access. Layered Tech also enhanced access between its data centers with 10-gigabit circuits, while hardware upgrades include new Cisco switches in VSS configuration. The upgrades and improvements have resulted in faster, more reliable access for Layered Tech customers.

Jack Finlayson, CEO of Layered Tech noted, ''Our rapidly expanding customer base is fueling Layered Tech's network investments whose benefits are particularly attractive to enterprise customers looking for advanced virtualization technologies. The network upgrade has been a major initiative since our acquisition of FastServers.Net earlier this year. We will continue to evolve our network to meet our customers' needs, but we already know that Layered Tech offers the services, capacity, security and redundancy that other data centers and dedicated hosting providers just can't match.''

The value of Layered Tech's upgraded network was recently showcased when an enterprise customer, which provides an open-source blog publishing application, wanted to expand its presence into a second Layered Tech data center. Layered Tech was able to deploy 150 servers for the customer in less than a week at its Chicago data center, which was best-suited to handle the significant increase because of its enterprise-grade security and redundancy.

From its upgraded data centers, Layered Tech can now offer its DEFCON managed services to customers of Layered Tech's Grid Layer virtual machines; previously the DEFCON services, which mitigate challenges commonly associated with the operations of hosted infrastructure, were available only to dedicated-server clients.

In addition, Layered Tech's growing international presence resulted in the company adding data centers in Tokyo and Amsterdam, providing overseas customers important local points of presence. This overseas expansion gives Layered Tech the global reach to address hosting requirements of the largest multinational companies.

Jeremy Suo-Anttila, CTO at Layered Tech explained, ''The network upgrades have solidified Layered Tech's leadership position in both enterprise-class services and virtualization technologies. With our virtual private data centers, Layered Tech can provide customers with private switches, firewalls and load-balancing devices that aren't available from most data centers or dedicated hosting providers. Layered Tech can build out the infrastructure required by enterprise-class customers, who have highly complex designs. We deliver the platform customers need, whether it's dedicated servers or a virtual computing environment, and we wrap our flexible and customized managed services around those configurations. These capabilities are uncommon, and Layered Tech is proud to offer them.''

Layered Technologies, Inc. is a global provider of on-demand hosting, utility computing solutions and web services. By providing high quality technology, infrastructure and support we enable customers to forego capital expenses and save on operating costs while focusing on core business issues. Layered Technologies' scalable infrastructure powers millions of sites and Internet enabled applications including e-Commerce, Software as a Service (''SaaS''), content distribution and more. Its clients range from leading-edge Web 2.0 startups, successful mid-sized enterprises and some the world's largest consultancy and integration firms.

For more information about Layered Technologies, please visit: www.layeredtech.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/layered_technologies_upgrades_network.html

Paid Hosting Joins VH1 Save the Music Foundation Efforts

2008-10-02T02:55:00-04:00

Boston, Massachusetts - (Website Hosting Directory) - October 2, 2008 - Hosting provider, Paid, Inc., has partnered with jazz legends, Return to Forever, and the VH1 Save the Music Foundation charity auction.

Fresh from their impressive U.S. and European summer reunion tour, the influential jazz fusion/rock foursome RETURN TO FOREVER has teamed up with the experts at Paid, Inc. to auction autographed collectors items online to benefit the VH1 Save The Music Foundation. The auction is live now on www.Return2Forever.com and will conclude on October 6, 2008.

Return to Forever, a legendary jazz group founded by Chick Corea and beloved worldwide for over 25 years, is hosting the auction to support youth music education.

Lenny White, Drummer with Return to Forever noted, ''The VH1 Save The Music Foundation is essential for American youth. We unfortunately live in a time where musicians take a back seat to music-makers. I think it's very important to re-introduce our youth to the actual process of learning to play an instrument and making music with that instrument. The joy that comes from creating music is worth the effort it takes to learn music. We should give our kids this opportunity. The VH1 Save The Music Foundation gives them that choice. We encourage our fans to participate in the auction and spread the word to others who share our belief in the value of music in our lives.''

The online auction is open to everyone. Items up for bid include:

RETURN TO FOREVER Autographed 2008 Summer Tour Promotional Poster Display - Features the signatures of legendary musicians Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, and Al DiMeola. This is a one-of-a-kind autographed stand-up promotional display used during the RETURN TO FOREVER 2008 Tour, and features B and W image of the group to advertise their 'The Anthology' CD. Approximately 7 ft. tall X 3 ft. wide, it is retractable into its metal base. Near Mint to Mint condition.

RETURN TO FOREVER Autographed 2008 Summer Tour Promotional Signs (Two Separate Sets of 4) - Each of the four pieces in each set features the signatures of all four legendary musicians: Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, and Al DiMeola. Sets contain four different 8 1/2 x 11 promotional signs of photos of the group and individual band members that were used on the 2008 RETURN TO FOREVER Summer Tour. Near Mint to Mint condition.

Each item has been fully certified by PAID AUTHENTIC, a state-of-the-art autograph and memorabilia authentication program operated by Paid Inc. PAID AUTHENTIC is believed to be the most comprehensive and advanced program available in the music and entertainment industry, assuring the validity of each item offered. All items offered include a PAID AUTHENTIC certificate of authenticity (COA) and matching-number hologram label verifying that the items have originated from stated celebrities and that Paid has witnessed the celebrities autographing each item. Certification data on the items can be viewed at www.PaidAuthentic.com, and is a critical enhancement to the collectibles' future value, increasing it by as much as 100%.

Paid, Inc.'s celebrity services provides famous people with official web sites and fan club services that include e-commerce storefronts, ticketing and fan experience packages, and web site content. The Company also sponsors autograph signing events and other sports marketing services for sports clientele. Using proprietary patent-pending technology, Paid's patent-pending AuctionInc brand shipping calculation and auction management software and services are utilized to streamline online auctions, ecommerce and web site development and hosting.

For more information about Paid web hosting services, please visit: www.paid.com.

Find discount dedicated server, cheap web hosting and discount website hosting offers here.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/paid_hosting_joins_vh1_save_the_music_foundation_efforts.html

Rackspace Hosting Survey Results Revealed

2008-10-01T02:33:00-04:00

San Antonio, Texas - (The Hosting News) - October 1, 2008 - IT services and hosting firm, Rackspace Managed Hosting, has released the resultes of a recent customer survey.

Nearly 70 percent of customer respondents have indicated that the number of IT functions outsourced to hosting, SaaS or cloud service providers should increase over the next five years. John Engates, Chief Technology Officer, Rackspace Hosting noted, ''Rackspace is changing the way companies are buying IT services. Two thirds of the survey respondents use a services provider to host one or more of their SaaS applications today and the data indicates that demand is likely to increase. To meet this demand, Rackspace intends to continue to build out its portfolio of hosted IT services, which currently includes email and cloud solutions, and to back them all with our award-winning Fanatical Support.''

Customer respondents also revealed that the amount they will spend on hosting is expected to increase over the next five years. Today, 47 percent of respondents said they spend between 0 and 20 percent of their IT budget on hosted services, while 30 percent of respondents said that they spend 30 - 50 percent of their IT budget on hosted services. Nearly 50 percent of customer respondents said that they expect the percentage of IT budgets spent on hosted services to increase over the next five years.

The customer survey also acknowledged that outsourcing IT functions to a hosting provider can save IT managers a significant amount of time. More than 40 percent of the customer respondents said that outsourcing their IT functions to a hosting provider saved them from 30-50 percent of their time. As a result, almost three-fourths of them believe that they can spend at least 25 percent more time on new projects because of the time that saved from outsourcing their hosting needs.

The methodology for Rackspace's survey research involved sending an email survey to approximately 1,600 US-based Rackspace customers. Approximately seven percent of survey recipients responded to the questions. Detailed information and the full survey report can be found at: www.rackspace.com/downloads/surveys/RackspaceITSurvey.pdf.

Rackspace Hosting 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. Rackspace is recognized as one of FORTUNE Magazine's 100 Best companies to work for in the US, ranking number 32 on the 2008 list. Rackspace's portfolio of hosted IT services includes managed hosting, email hosting and cloud hosting.

For more information about Rackspace Managed Hosting, please visit: www.rackspace.com.

Learn more about hosting providers and services. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/661.html