Web Hosting News

April was a bit more active than March. I am getting some good "vibes" pre HostingCon and ISPCON was better than expected. My firm closed a couple of transactions which is always nice. So here we go…

Laguna Niguel, CA — Alentus Corporation (ALNS) acquired Austin, Texas-based Website Source, Inc. (Shared) and SpeedFox, Inc. (Dedicated).  The deals add $2.6M in annual revenue to Alentus. Tom Millitzer President of NCC-New Commerce Communications (This blogger) represented Website Source and Speedfox in the transactions.

Dublin, Ireland - Digiweb, has acquired web hosting Novara, as well as its host.ie and register.ie brands. Digiweb serves 22,000 hosting customers, 32,000 broadband customers and has 140 Employees.

Boston, MA - ABRY Partners acquired Raleigh, NC based Hosted Solutions for $140 million. Hosted Solutions has several East Coast data centers and provides managed services. Paul Stapleton of DH Capital represented Hosted Solutions in the transaction.

Scottsdale, AZ - Vilocity Interactive Inc. recently expanded its client roster and presence on the East Coast with the acquisition of a Boston-based WebNesting a hosting and site development firm.

San Mateo, CA – SAS provider Etelos, Inc.   (Public, OTC: ETLO) completed reverse merger into Tripath Technology. Company has a market cap of $210 million.

Nottinghamshire UK - Timico Group acquired Twang.net Limited, a UK-based a specialist in fully managed solutions.

Renton, WA - Parallels, has acquired ModernGigabyte, the ModernBill automated billing system and other hosting automation solutions. ModernGigabyte provides software to nearly 15,000 hosting resellers with more than 2 million customers worldwide.

Plano, TX - Layered Technologies, Inc., acquired of FastServers.net, a Chicago-based managed hosting company. I ran into FastServers founder Ian Andrusyk at ISPCON…he was very relaxed.

Mississauga, ON - Hostopia (TSX: H) acquired the customer assets of Web hosting provider Luxomovera, operating as uplinkearth.com. Reportedly an all-cash offer that will migrate some 12,500 customers Hostopia's facilities.

Fairfax, VA - mindSHIFT Technologies acquired Collaboration Online, better known as groupSPARK. Collaboration Online provides Shared & Dedicated Exchange data center and other server side services.

Obviously not all inclusive - but from the NCC files.

More about Tom:

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Meet me at Hostingcon and attend my M&A session. 

Wouldn't it be great to understand exactly how Google decides to rank websites? And wouldn't it be even better if the information on Google search rankings came from a true ''insider'' at Google? Well if the Google blog is to be believed, the company has begun an effort to do just that. Udi Manber, a Vice President of Engineering at Google is part of the team called 'Search Quality'. Search Quality is the name of the team responsible for the ranking of Google search results. That is, when you type a search query into the search box at Google and hit enter, the Search Quality team is responsible to decide within a fraction of a second which among the billions of pages on the web to display, and in what order.

So according to this post in the Official Google Blog, the company has decided to share more information with those outside Google about exactly how its search rankings are determined. As anyone who has tried to get a website ranked at Google for any relatively popular term can tell you, the exact process of how Google ranks pages has been intentionally shrouded in mystery since the company was founded. However, in the blog post Mr. Manber declares, ''But being completely secretive isn't ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past. We will try to periodically tell you about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage in conversations. Let me start with some general pieces of information about our group. More blog posts will follow.''

The rest of the piece doesn't reveal anything particularly new about the ranking process.

So why on earth would Google be telling us about how rankings are formulated? And why do it now? What is to be gained?

Perhaps as the company has become nearly monopolistic in search, there is added pressure to assure the outside world that the search results are truly independent of any internal manipulation. It's no secret that a top Google ranking for a highly trafficked term, for instance ''web hosting'', is worth thousands of dollars per day. There is also the prestige and brand equity that comes with a number one ranking at Google.

So how do we know that Google's ranking system is ''fair''?

We don't. For all we know, influential insiders at Google have sent around an internal memo that reads in part, ''When in doubt, just put the Wikipedia entry for the search term at the top of the results…''. Of course that's not what would lead to the most relevant search results, but then again the search industry is completely unregulated. If Google wanted to, they could rank www.thewhir.com as the number one result for ''web hosting''. So why don't they?

Perhaps Mr. Manber's next blog post will shed some light on that subject.

This content appears courtesy of HostMySite.com.

While we were at Parallels’ third annual hosting summit, we not only brought you a look at what some of the exhibitors and attendees thought of the event, but we had the opportunity to sit down with Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels.

This year’s record attendance (as has been mentioned numerous times) was certainly something that made this summit stand out, but this particular event was also the first one to be held under the new, more “optimized” Parallels brand. We asked Serguei how he thought it turned out and about his vision for service providers and ISVs.

WHIRtv was on location in Washington, DC last week covering Parallel’s third annual hosting summit, which, we’ve been told, had the largest attendance yet.

We chatted with a number of different companies while at the event, which we will be posting in the following weeks, as well as with the ever-opinionated industry leader Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. Stay tuned for that later this week.

In the meantime, here’s a look at what some of the exhibitors and attendees thought of this year’s Parallel’s Hosting Summit and the value they found in attending this annual event.

So the software company I devote most of my time to has just released an open source version of it's commercial offering.  This has maybe opened up the most ginormous can of internal battle worms for me in a loooooooooooong time.  It has really made me think of what made me get into this industry in the first place.  So what is "free as in beer"?  I hear this thrown around a good deal (more in the last couple of months internally).  Fron the context, I think most of  us can grasp what this is about, but as I've been hearing this in mixed context lately I thought I would dig in a bit further .  It seems it's roots  are from the first bit of an essay by Richard Stallman.

Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

 I think this is such a wonderful statement.  I think all too often any more we get wrapped up in how free and/or open source software is going to effect our bottom line (the one defined by the no longer almighty dollar) and lose sight of what this can actually bring into our industry.  What is it going to take to tilt the scales back in the direction of free as in speech?  I mean we're taling about EMAIL here! Shouldn't free as in speech be at the top of what drives our decisions about how we deliver this to our customers?  Maybe it's not our place to make that decision for our customers?  I guess I feel it is our responsibility to provide these customers with that other thing that goes so hand in hand with freedom, choice. At the very least it is something to think about as we make these decisions.

jb 

After a rather excitement-filled evening on the Potomac River boat cruise and a night on the town, many attendees were rather impressively “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” as Candice would say, for Day 2 of the Parallels Summit. Although it wasn’t as bustling as the first day, as it usually is with conferences, the sessions were still relatively well-attended and theWHIR networking lounge continued to be a hotspot for networking and deal-making.

The day started off with a keynote from Bill McNee from Saugatuck Technology who discussed what is known as the “third wave of Saas,” which he says is characterized by an increased focus on mission critical business processes, personalized workflow and collaboration. In this sense, says McNee, SaaS is moving from the “fringe” to the “core” and increasingly being embraced as an enterprise-level solution. We can see this through examples like the emergence of robust SaaS ecosystems and marketplaces, as well as richer app experiences.

On top of the usual Parallels topics, like how to fully automate your infrastructure or the importance of standardizing, there were some other “timely” sessions on day two as well like Paul Stapleton’s session “The Valuation of Your Hosting Business” where he discussed present market valuations for hosts by reviewing recent M&A activity and public comparables, while keeping the recent “debt market turmoil” in mind. And the “Green Hosting Overview” where companies provided case studies, describing how they implemented a low-cost data center, how providers have launched initiatives to minimize power consumption in their data centers as well as an open question and answer period.

Over the next week look for the exhibitor and attendee feedback on WHIRtv as well as our one-on-one video interview with Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. Also be sure to check out theWHIR’s Flickr page for more coverage of the event.

As an update to that event teaser in January, Serguei says that is simply when Parallels’ next partner summit will be held. In January. Seems to be an interesting decision, considering it’s not in the middle of “conference” season. However, it could be a great way to break up the “monotony” of winter so no complaints there!

And for all the ISVs that didn’t make it out for this event, it is highly encouraged to attend the next one, says Serguei, as that is one of the main goals of the summit, to introduce and connect ISVs to Web hosts and to educate them on how to partner up. As you can see from this news story we reported on earlier this week, there definitely isn’t a lack of opportunity for ways to expand your business, especially at this particular event, and many of the attendees we spoke to were quite pleased with the new partnerships they were developing.

I feel like I should be writing this article for a recap at the end of the year rather than in the middle, but where we are heading is clear to me. In all corners of the tech industry, companies are merging. But this year it seems that the most notable combinations have better reasons than those before them - usually. To begin, we learned in April that Layered Technologies acquired Fastservers. The reason for this venture was described by John Pozadzides, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of LT.

"We're really big in the individual unmanaged servers, and we're really big in the grid hosting space. And that leaves this little sweet spot right in the middle for the managed server offerings, which is the only thing that Fastservers does. So when you put the two companies, that's why it's such a beautiful fit for us."

Larger companies are actively seeking specific value to add into their existing offerings. Unlike hosting mergers of the past, the most recent mergers are not for the sole purpose of gobbling up more numbers. Those other deals (think of the ones in 2007) make you ask, "Was it a merger or simply a purchase?" Icing can be layered on but doesn't change the cake inside.

The next tech mix that caught many of us by surprise was the scoop of Ars Technica by Condé Nast Publications. All of us are familiar with the excellent quality of Ars content and didn't imagine they would blend with any other company. Apparently they are on the climb for more readers and more contributions. Ars stated their reason as this below.

"Once we realized that an acquisition would be the quickest way to accelerate the growth of Ars, the question turned to who the best possible partner could be. Respect for our community and our stewardship of the website was of utmost importance, and Condé Nast could offer both.

Just as important, Condé Nast is privately owned, unquestionably strong, and has a very solid reputation for respecting and fostering talent. We wanted to be somewhere corporate leadership would "get it," somewhere the next fiscal quarter isn't more important than the long term, and somewhere with a proven track record of fostering smaller businesses."

The two mergers I have mentioned so far have a clear basis of providing a better, smarter service while expanding at the same time. This idea brings me to the latest question on the tipping scales this week: the surprise which combined efforts between ThePlanet and TouchSupport. In press releases, TouchSupport has mainly been described as a provider of server administration and management. While they do offer such services, what is instead most important about TouchSupport is that they provide technical support to many hosting companies, who may or may not have services with ThePlanet. You can imagine the complexities of the feelings on this merger. Instead of acquiring their services, ThePlanet instead acquired the company itself.

 "At The Planet, we are interested in extending our Advanced Services portfolio, and the services Touch Support provides its customers are precisely the kinds of offerings our customers are requesting. We evaluated a number of companies, and Touch Support was identified as the ideal company to help us jump start these services for our dedicated hosting customers and to grow that segment of our business. As we see it, it's an ideal fit for both companies and for our customers."

What does all of this movement mean for the rest of the year and years ahead? Hopefully you have a very solid idea of where your company stands and how you will navigate its growth. There are always options but never choose swiftly. And companies you rely on for information or support may change their own directions, therefore causing a few detours on your map of success. Stay subscribed to publications like theWHIR for the latest news and predictions.

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