Plenty to get the juices flowing in April, not least Go Daddy's sponsorship of the Indy 500 -- vroom! On a more to topical note, announced in April, Presidential debates going online for the first time. April also saw Network Solutions shut down a pedophile website and AIT uncovering a new type of click fraud no one had ever thought of before! Also in April, Amazon suggested its web services would likely become profitable at some stage in the future, and good news for the industry, the Court of Appeals concluded existing legislation in the US shields web hosting service providers from action when their customers are not doing what they oughta! Further to their action against Google, April also saw Google coming out to say that Viacomm is abusing the copyright act as far as its action against them is concerned.
Plenty of champagne corks a popping in April - Google Inc. announced its first quarter financials, and The Planet posted a record first quarter. In addition, a number of milestones were met in April - Streamline.Net achieved 100,000 domains hosted, C I Host celebrated 10 years in hosting, and ResellerClub achieved 1.5 million domains managed. There were lots of personnel changes in April too - iWeb Group Inc. lost a board member and straight away appointed brand new board members. In addition, Johnny Vincent was named Chief Accounting Officer at The Planet. Plenty of acquisitions afoot in the jester's month - Synnex bought into a Chinese web hosting company, Hostway acquired Affinity Internet, and JaguarPC Web Host acquired VPS and Server Provider DEHE.
Lots of partnerships in April as well -- Provident Financial appointed NetNames to protect and manage its domain names, JaguarPC partnered with Alstrasoft Software, Truston chose managed hosting provider Dedigate, WebFusion teamed up with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, Verio announced a new partner rebate program, SOFTBANK IDC selected SWsoft Virtuozzo Virtualization Software and SWsoft Plesk Control Panel software, cPanel partnered with Edit.com, and Mixsic.com chosesLayered Technologies' the GridLayer.
A devilish lot of datacenter activity seen in April... Digital Realty Trust, Inc. acquired facilities in Northern Virginia, Rackspace launched a new UK data center, Layered Technologies and 3Tera offered "Virtual Private Datacenters", Qube Networks added Central London data center space, Peak 10 announced an expansion and Rackspace suggested it might move headquarters. Lots also to consider also in the world of domains. Dotster announced its lead web designers received .Mobi developer certification, and it was reported VeriSign is set to increase domain name prices.
As with every other month, April saw its share of promotions. dotWORLDS offered no cost domains, emails, hosting or storage -- interesting revenue model -- while
Supanet ran a 12 months free web hosting promotion alongside The Planet, who offered RAM discounts on new server orders. A few awards received in April also, Aplus.Net became an Innovation All-Star, and SWsoft attained Microsoft Partner Program Gold Certified Partner Status.
As with every month, hosting companies enhanced their plans to stay ahead of the curve... Easy CGI announced a phpBB upgrade, Supanet Hosting offered a free website builder, Re-invent added NET 3.0 framework hosting, eApps Hosting announced Java SE 6 and Tomcat 6 in VPS hosting plans, and VeriCenter enhanced its Customer Service Delivery Process. Other hosts offered new services to keep ahead of the pack - Streamline.Net unveiled a new range of dedicated servers, Verio announced Linux Managed Private Server (MPS), WireNine introduced a semi-dedicated hosting plan, DiscountASP.NET announced .NET framework 3.0 Hosting, and 123Together.com offered Exchange 2007 on a Microsoft validated platform. In addition, EIRCA introduced Private Label End User phone support, Intermedia.NET offered an Exchange 2007 outsourcing solution for mid-sized companies, and Rackforce introduced new IBM Quad-Core servers.
All in all, yet another bit chomping month in web hosting! Let's hope May is as good!
