February was another epic adventure into the world of web hosting, with Microsoft firmly in the news. The company first submitted an unsolicited proposal to purchase Yahoo! which was ultimately declined -- a response that caused US pension funds to sue Yahoo! Just to warm up the specter of a Microsoft and Yahoo! joining forces to create a web hosting demigod, Yahoo! began offering unlimited web hosting -- and that means really unlimited... meaning you pay for nothing extra... the real deal... so be warned! Towards the end of February, Microsoft also kicked off Windows Server 2008, as did its partners Go Daddy and Rackspace.
Always in the news, Go Daddy got the royal treatment in February, when fourth in line to the British throne, The Prince Andrew, Duke of York, was taken on a tour of the Scottsdale, Arizona headquarters of the Go Daddy Group. Serving in the Falkland's war, Prince Andrew is a veteran, as is Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons, who the Prince met during his tour. Clarence E. Briggs, Founder and CEO of AIT and search engine tyBit is also a veteran, and he announced in February that he is to launch a radio show which will deal with the Internet and how it impacts people's lives. Sounds like a winner, and they are already discussing syndication across the USA!
February was also a month when Globat.com had a bit of a nightmare, which fortunately they managed to fix reasonably quickly. A couple of reports in February gave a few people nightmares though -- one suggested web hosting providers underestimate security threats, while another suggested two-thirds of Aussie web hosts are not search engine friendly. Strewth! Yet another report in February suggested business websites without communication tools drive visitors to competitors -- better get your Dreamweaver out tonight then
In February we saw that web hosting's green dream is alive and kicking - The Planet announced the results of its green initiative while Crucial Paradigm Australia also announced it was bolstering its 'green hosting' initiative. Being that time of year, February also saw a lot of financial reports - NaviSite was to release second quarter 2008 results and Tucows likewise. Meanwhile, Melbourne IT predicted more sales and earnings growth in 2008.
Plenty of activity on the domain front as well in February - Hostway offered a '.Asia' cash-back promotion while Dotster began .ASIA pre-registration. In addition, Tucows Inc. announced a Personal Names Service and Go Daddy became the first registrar to escrow with ICANN. On the email and security front, Tucows enhanced its email service, Vistapages offered a free spam protection service, and SoftScan and ScanSafe partnered on a web Security-as-a-Service.
Plenty of new products and services entering the scene in February - Fasthosts offered a novelty -- MS Office online -- while AIT launched dedicated gaming servers. In addition, Versaweb added two new dedicated server configurations, Easy CGI offered DotNetNuke and Spacerich.com launched Windows hosting. In addition, eApps Hosting offered new VPS hosting plans, EastLink announced the launch of web hosting services, INetU announced Windows Server 2008 managed hosting, Crucial Paradigm introduced managed Xen Virtual dedicated servers, Cirtex Corporation launched 'HostV' and offered VDS and dedicated servers, and Webcity announced High Availability Server Architecture (HASA).
While some companies added new products and services, others enhanced theirs to make them more attractive to consumers. Host Color added the ModX Ajax CMS, Lunarpages Web Hosting upgraded to unlimited website hosting, Gazzin.com upgraded infrastructure and added new servers and recovery Tools, IPOWER integrated RatePoint, and DiscountASP.NET added SmarterMail API to its Open Control Panel API Library.
Lots of people letting the world know about their presence at upcoming summits and presentations in February. EarthLink announced it was to attend the Jefferies Conference, Parallels announced its Summit 2008 for partners, customers and industry experts, Cbeyond announced it would present at the Thomas 2008 Weisel Partners Technology, Telecom and Internet Conference and CrystalTech announced it would participate in Microsoft's 2008 Global Launch Wave as an official partner.
Also in February, masses of partnerships. It was announced Q9 would provide Wal-Mart Canada with fully managed hosting, Twitter chose NTT America, Hostway partnered with Alert Logic, The Planet partnered with DNSstuff.com, and Attenda joined the Microsoft SaaS Incubation Center Program for ISVs. Alongside the partnerships were the awards, which again there were plenty of in February. Hivelocity wins the Webhost Magazine's Editor's Choice Award for Dedicated Servers, HostMySite.com gained SAS 70 Type II certification, UK2 was nominated for the ISPA Awards, Memset was recognized for environmental initiatives, HostWorks, Inc. was voted number 1 web developer for two consecutive years in Denver, Hivelocity got into the Inc. 5000, and WebFaction celebrated 5 years in web hosting.
A few companies moving into new premises or expanding existing premises in February - MaximumASP opened a new Server Operations Center and HostMySite.com moved into new worldwide corporate headquarters. There were also of course the movers and shakers that moved into new positions. Dan Frechtling and Ross Johnston joined Dotster Inc., Bill Cashman was named Peak 10's Virtualized Services Manager, and Layered Technologies announced the appointment of John Pozadzides as Chief Marketing Officer.
Of course, as ever, in this highly competitive environment, there were promotions galore! The Planet offered bandwidth discounts as one of a number of promotions, while Aplus.Net reduced dedicated server prices. In addition, AIT made VPS and Enterprise Server discounts permanent, and Dotster offered a Valentine promotion.
