Oct 17, 2003 : The webhost industry: week review

📅 October 17, 2003 - Most widespread among the news and announcements from the Web hosting business this week were the introductions of a number of new products and services from a variety of companies, many of them related to the hosting business in a variety of ways. Most significant, however, was one of the two announcements relating to the buying and selling of assets.
On Thursday, VeriSign announced that it would sell the domain registration business it has operated since it acquired Network Solutions three years ago. VeriSign will sell the business to venture capital group Pivotal Private Equity for approximately $100 million, including $60 million in cash and a $40 million senior subordinated note. VeriSign will also keep a stake in the registration business, and will maintain control of the .com and .net registries it also acquired through the Network Solutions purchase.
In a somewhat less high-profile acquisition, VIA NET.WORKS said on Tuesday that its Swiss subsidiary had acquired the customer accounts of Swiss Web design and hosting company FORUM fuer Telematik AG, which serves the hotel and restaurant market in Switzerland. VIA NET.WORKS says the acquisition of the customer accounts will will extend the company's reach into a key vertical market and open the door to the hospitality market in Europe and the United States.
While perhaps the single most important story of the week fell under the mergers and acquisitions umbrella, there was considerably more activity related to the launch of new products and services.
On Monday, SWsoft announced that it had released the Plesk 6 hosting automation solution for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. According to SWsoft, the Plesk 6 control panel, designed for use with large departmental and data center server deployments, is the only software available to manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. Along with the announcement, the company said it is providing long-term support for Red Hat Enterprise 2.1 and is developing software to integrate with the Red Hat Enterprise Network.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it had introduced its Solution for Hosted Exchange, a multi-service platform designed to allow service providers to build, deploy, deliver and manage email communication services for consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises. The Solution for Hosted Exchange, says Microsoft, uses .NET technologies to allow self-provisioning, server consolidation and delegated administration. The company says the service is designed to reduce operating costs and increase revenues through services that enhance end-user productivity.
Also on Tuesday, hosting automation software firm Ensim Corporation announced that it had launched Ensim Unify Manager for Exchange 2003 to coincide with the new Microsoft product. Working with the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Exchange, Ensim says the product was jointly developed by Microsoft and Ensim to ensure that hosting service providers have the infrastructure for hosting Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. The solution incorporates .NET technologies including Exchange Server 2003, Windows Server 2003, SQL Server 2000, Active Directory, ASP.NET and Visual Studio.NET. The solution will be available by the end of October 2003.
And on Tuesday again, Web performance measurement and management services provider Keynote Systems announced that it had introduced its Streaming Perspective 3.0, a service designed to measure and manage the performance and availability of streaming media. According to Keynote, the tool provides coverage for measurements of streaming from nine US and five international locations, including New York, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Tokyo, London, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Paris, and Frankfurt. Streaming Perspective 3.0 is used for the Microsoft Windows Media 9 Series Certification Program.
While news of mergers and acquisitions, or the release of new products and services, is certainly not unusual in the Web hosting business, this week's Web hosting news was particularly high-impact, mostly because it came from industry leading companies like Microsoft and VeriSign. And more so than usual, the new products released this week, as well as the changes in ownership at Network Solutions, will likely have a visible and measurable impact on the hosting business.