Dec 5, 2003 : The webhost industry: week review

📅 December 5, 2003 - In a big week for big news, the Web hosting industry saw a number of companies return from last week's thanksgiving holiday with major announcements, including word of several acquisitions, a number of significant partnerships, several hosting-related product launches and the release of a range of research data.
Earlier in the week, it was reported that data center operator Data393 had offered to acquire hosting firm Ventures Online in a move that would combine Data393's colocation and managed server offerings with Venture Online's shared and dedicated hosting, domain services, data warehousing and reselling presence. Ventures Online CEO John Burns confirmed in a message board posting that the company was in discussions, but offered few details.
In a more conclusive announcement, US LEC corporation said on Friday that its bid to acquire substantially all the assets of Web hosting provider FASTNET had been approved by a Pennsylvania bankruptcy court. The company said the acquisition would include the broadband and dial-up Internet access, colocation and managed hosting units of FASTNET, as well as two Eastern-Pennsylvania data centers. The $8.5 million purchase is expected add $24 million in revenue to US LEC's operations.
While some sought to acquire, several other companies announced this week that they intended to benefit from the strengths of other companies through newly-arranged partnerships.
On Tuesday, business assurance solutions provider SMARTS and data center automation software firm BladeLogic announced that they had formed an alliance designed to help bring systems management capabilities to data centers and allow IT organizations to develop more efficient utility computing models. Through the agreement, say the companies, customers will be able to use SMARTS's InCharge and BladeLogic's Operations Manager to provision, change, monitor, diagnose and repair application infrastructure.
And on Thursday, telecom carrier MCI said it had entered a strategic alliance with chip maker Intel to jointly market and sell MCI's voice, data and Internet services through Intel's product dealer channel. The data services include Web hosting, security, data network solutions and virtual private networks. The companies say that, as part of the partnership, they will work together to develop targeted products and solutions.
Along with the new joint offerings, a number of companies announced new offerings on their own this week, many of them developers of software for the Web hosting industry.
On Tuesday, Soholaunch.com announced that it had released its free Web site building tool, Soholaunch Web Studio. The server-based software is designed to allow Internet service providers, Web hosting companies and domain registrars to add value to hosting packages, increasing customer conversion rates and retention.
On Wednesday, Akmin Technologies announced that it had released SiteGalorePlus, a centrally-hosted collection of Web site building tools and value-added services, designed for Internet service providers, Web hosts and application service providers to resell to customers. The company says SiteGalorePlus provides a Flash wizard, BlogZone, home page wizard, shop wizard, online image editor and more than 300 designs.
And on Thursday, Positive Software Corporation announced that it had released H-Sphere Virtual Private Server 1.1, a hosting automation platform integrated with virtual private server technology. The company says the tool allows hosting providers to sell Linux-based virtual private servers to clients, providing a major improvement in stability and performance over previous versions.
In a slight departure from the business maneuvering of its other news, this week also saw the release of new data from several research organizations, including Netcraft and Sage Research.
On Wednesday, Netcraft released the results of its December Web server survey, indicating a rise in the penetration of Apache, while Microsoft's share dropped slightly. The company also published a list of top hosting providers, based on growth in total hostnames for the month of November, identifying 1&1 Internet and Go Daddy as having made the largest gains in total hostnames.
On Thursday, Sage Research announced that it had released the results of its bi-monthly Service Provider Confidence Index, which measures and analyzes the mood of telecommunications service providers. The company says its most recent results indicate a continued rise in expectations among service providers, despite a decline in its current conditions index.
It seems as though the organizations involved in the hosting business have a few more big announcements to make before things settle down once more for the holidays. Don't be surprised to see more important news next week as companies work to conclude their most significant efforts for the year.