Oct 29, 2004 : The webhost industry: week review

📅 October 29, 2004 - The Web hosting industry's news this week was dominated by two trends in particular, with Web hosts advancing their status through certification and increasing their capacity through acquisition.
In addition to the issues that developed this week, there was development in a story that has featured prominently in recent weeks, as lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a motion to unseal the federal order that led to the seizure of servers hosting independent media group Web sites from a facility operated by Rackspace Managed Hosting. The motion reportedly comes as free speech advocates and media organizations express concerns over foreign governments enlisting the help of the US to shut down independent news sources.
More prominent in this week's news, however, was the efforts of Web hosting companies to meet the very specific needs of certain markets, and to increase the stature of their own offerings, through the achievement of certain hosting-related certifications.
On Tuesday, Web hosting provider Inflow announced that it's recently acquired managed services division at Inflow-Charlotte had achieved the SAS 70 Type II certification developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Inflow says the certification will add to other measures met by the company, such as the ISO 9001:2000 standard. Inflow says the SAS 70 label means it has implemented certain controls and processes for managing and monitoring internal and customer data.
Also on Tuesday, IT outsourcer RagingWire announced that it, too, had successfully completed a SAS 70 audit, provided by auditing and accounting firm SAS 70 Solutions. RagingWire says the audit enabled the company to disclose its internal controls and processes to its clients. With the certification, says RagingWire, the company is better able to fulfill the compliance requirements of its large public clients.
Amid the stories of certification, Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it had enhanced its Windows Media Hosting Provider Certification Program, adding the Premier designation. The company says it has partnered with Keynote Systems, which will administer network quality assurance test to companies seeking the new designation, which identifies service providers that have implemented networks that exceed basic requirements and demonstrate excellent reliability and capacity.
Perhaps the most significant trend in the Web hosting business this past week was the completion of a number of acquisitions, both small and large, beginning with a deal discussed in a feature from late last week. In his article, Philbert Shih discussed how Canadian colocation firm Peer 1's acquisition of dedicated hosting firm ServerBeach has given the company a logical extension into the dedicated hosting market. Like Peer 1, ServerBeach takes an unmanaged approach to hosting, making the process of integrating the two organizations much simpler.
On Wednesday, managed hosting provider Fusepoint Managed Services announced that it had acquired Montreal-based managed hosting provider Versus. Fusepoint said versus would become a Fusepoint brand, maintaining its operations in Montreal and Quebec City, and certain current executives would remain with the company and join Fusepoint's management team. Versus reportedly brings with it more than 100 active customers.
On Thursday, Internet service provider Cable & Wireless announced that it is selling its Japanese business to Tokyo-based broadband provider Softbank Corp. for the equivalent of $115 million US, including $18 million US in additional debts. Softbank says the Cable & Wireless facilities will become a subsidiary of Softbank, strengthening the company's efforts to challenge former government monopoly NTT.
Also on Thursday, Rackspace Managed Hosting announced that it had acquired a 55,000 square foot data center facility in Grapevine, Texas. Rackspace says the new building, the company's fifth facility, doubles its data center capacity and provides added geographic redundancy. The company says it now has more than 20,000 new servers to accommodate growth.
While certification and acquisition are definitely ongoing themes in the Web hosting business, it is rare that a specific instance of either will require any ongoing scrutiny. The story of Indymedia's encounter with the FBI, on the other hand, is still just beginning to unfold, and will likely be a subject of discussion for weeks to come.