BEST WEBSITE HOSTS 2010

Parallels Announces Parallels Server for Mac with Bare Metal Capabilities

In a major extension of its server virtualization offerings for Apple environments, cloud services automation and virtualization software Parallels (www.parallels.com) has introduced the world’s first bare-metal hypervisor solution for the Apple Xserve.

According to the company’s Wednesday announcement, Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition offers greater performance for applications running in virtual machines on the Xserve, and enable businesses to standardize on the Apple platform, and open a new opportunity for cloud services providers to offer profitable Mac OS X services. The addition of Parallels Virtual Automation provides comprehensive management tools for monitoring and maintaining the virtual environment.

“The 33 percent year-on-year increase in sales of Macintosh computers reported by Apple this quarter indicates a growing interest in Apple hardware,” Parallels chief executive officer Serguei Beloussov said in a statement. “Virtualization solutions can help make this a practical reality for users, giving them the ability to run the Windows and Linux applications they need on the Apple system they want. Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition provides a high performance solution that enables IT professionals and developers to capitalize on the power of Mac OS X Server while having the flexibility to run Windows and Linux workloads both on-premise and through the Cloud.”

Building on Parallels’ virtualization portfolio for Apple environments (most notably the existing server virtualization solution, Parallels Server for Mac), the new architecture represents the first ever bare-metal hypervisor for Intel-powered Apple systems, offering users greater performance and hot migration, the ability to migrate systems without needing to go completely offline.

“The Xserve offers unbeatable performance, and Mac OS X Server is the world’s easiest to use server operating system,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “With the Mac more popular than ever, and Parallels’ new virtualization tools, there has never been a better or easier time for entire organizations to switch to Mac.” 

Not just for on-premise deployments, Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition presents an opportunity for cloud services providers to diversify their offerings into new growth areas — capitalizing on Apple’s popularity. Parallels’ service provider partners can quickly and easily offer profitable Mac OS X services, including Virtual Private Servers and application hosting as a cloud service. 

At this week’s Parallels Summit in Miami, hosting company Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) announced plans to offer Mac OS X services based on virtual private servers built on Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition. “Go Daddy is always looking for ways to enhance our customer experience, and provide simple solutions,” Go Daddy chief operating officer and president Warren Adelman said in a statement. “We do this by offering the products our customers want and need. Together with the innovative minds at Parallels and the usability experts at Apple, we have opened the door to a line of Mac OS X hosting products.”

Web Host Go Daddy Introduces Affiliate Program

Web hosting provider and domain registrar Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) announced on Thursday it has introduced a new affiliate program, which gives affiliates a chance to earn 20 percent commissions for referring others to Go Daddy services online.

Free to join, the Go Daddy Direct Affiliate Program was created as a way to thank the customers who bring others onboard, says the company.

To become an affiliate, users must open a shopper account and then select from more than 100 Go Daddy banner or text ads to post on their existing website, blog, or Facebook page by copying and pasting HTML code.

When someone clicks on the link and purchases a Go Daddy product such as a domain name, hosting services, or SSL certificate, the affiliate earns a commission.

“Our customers are our greatest marketers,” says Go Daddy CEO and founder Bob Parsons. “They use our products, know the quality of Go Daddy’s customer service and can speak to the experience firsthand.”

Go Daddy tracks affiliate link referrals and rewards affiliates commissions on orders placed up to 45 days after the initial click.

Commissions are paid out monthly to affiliates either through direct deposit, PayPal, check or GoodAsGold. Affiliates can track their commissions with free, online tools found on the Go Daddy website.

Web Hosting Sales and Promos Roundup Feb.

With Valentines Day and Presidents Day but a memory, there were only a handful of sales and promo announcements complimenting a great deal of continuing promotions in the week ending February 2010, including SingleHop’s unlimited free SSL certificates to resellers, and Virpus Networks’ $7 per month VPS promotion.

SingleHop Announces Unlimited Free SSLs for Tandem Resellers

Potentially saving hosts hundreds of dollars every year, Chicago-based dedicated and managed web hosting provider SingleHop (www.singlehop.com) will be offering completely free, unlimited Globalsign (www.globalsign.com) SSL certificates, including wildcard SSLs, to participants in its new reseller program, Tandem. SingleHop says that SSL certificates have never been given away in this magnitude before.

Virpus Announces Permanent $7 per month VPS Promotion

Virtual private server provider Virpus Networks (www.virpus.com) has launched a $7 per month VPS promotion as a permanent plan for its un-managed VPS product line. Seven dollars provides a minimum of 512 MB of guaranteed RAM, many linux OS choices and 24/7 support with 30 minute average response times. Additionally, it has lowered its pricing on both its semi-managed and managed VPS product line, and offering a free control panel (either DirectAdmin or cPanel) to customers who prepay for their plans.

Codero’s Free cPanel Promotion

The latest promotion from dedicated hosting services provider Codero (www.codero.com) makes it easy for customers to try cPanel’s control panel. For a limited time, it is allowing customers to receive cPanel for free during the first three months on dedicated and managed hosting plans when they obtain a new cPanel license. This promotion lets users discover how the integration of cPanel’s control panel can make it easy to automate server tasks such as account setup, servers, alerts, spam monitoring and more.

Spiral Hosting Cuts Price of Irish .IE Domains

Irish web host Spiral Hosting (www.spiralhosting.com) is offering Irish domains for only €16.99 plus VAT, far cheaper than a direct registration with the .IE registry, which costs €62. This offer expires at the end of March. The company also offers a free domain name with all of its web hosting packages, whether it’s a .ie domain name or any one of 26 other top-level domain extensions including .com .net .eu and .co.uk.

Exabytes Continues February 2010 Promotion

Earlier this month, web host and domain registrar Exabytes Network (www.exabytes.com) launched its February 2010 promotion. Until February 28, the Malaysian company is offering a $100 one-time discount on its semi-dedicated server plan. Also, Exabytes is offering a 50 percent discount on all its shared hosting packages until the end of the month for its Twitter followers (twitter.com/exabytes_us).

Webhostuk’s Free Year of Hosting Promotion

Webhostuk Limited (www.webhost.uk.net) has announced a February promotion whereby customers can sign up to get 20 percent off Linux and Windows shared hosting plans. Those that sign up are entitled to a free year of hosting as well as added disk space and bandwidth, and a free domain or transfer. The special promo coupon code to redeem this offer is “promo20″

ReliableSite Integrates Microsoft Web Application Gallery into Control Panel

Web host ReliableSite.Net (www.reliablesite.net), has integrated Microsoft’s Web Application Gallery into its control panel, providing customers with 1-click installation of some of today’s top free Web applications.

Serving individuals, and small and medium sized businesses, ReliableSite offers a wide-range of hosting solutions, including shared hosting, semi-dedicated servers, dedicated servers, and reseller hosting. According to its announcement this week, ReliableSite.Net users will be able to instantly install any applications in the Microsoft Web Application Gallery entirely through the ReliableSite control panel, without having to download or upload any files or configure the scripts.

“As a Microsoft Windows hosting provider, it’s important we make available to our customers the wide variety of Web tools and technologies created by Microsoft,” ReliableSite owner Radic Davydov said in a statement. “The Microsoft Web Application Gallery is an opportunity to save time and effort by utilizing a central repository of pre-configured, open source scripts.”

Some of the applications featured in Microsoft’s gallery include DotNetNuke Community Edition, the top open-source framework for building websites and web applications on Microsoft ASP.NET; Gallery, a slick, intuitive web-based photo gallery with photo management capabilities such as automatic thumbnails, resizing, and rotation; and content management system Umbraco, which lets users edit content with Word or LiveWriter.

In addition to Microsoft Web Application Gallery, ReliableSite also offers a multitude of pre-configured scripts that can be instantly installed at no additional charge in the ReliableSite control panel.

In September 2010, Microsoft announced the release of the Web Platform Installer 2.0 and the Windows Web Application Gallery 2.0, which together make it easier to develop richer and more compelling Web experiences.

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Yahoo! and Microsoft Receive US and EU Clearance to Implement Search Alliance

In what they hope will take them a step closer to wrestling search engine market share from Google (www.google.com), Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) and Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) have received clearance for their search agreement from both the US Department of Justice and the European Commission.

According to the Thursday announcement, both governing bodies let the partnership pass without restrictions, and both companies will now turn their attention to implementing the deal, which is expected to begin in the coming days. Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms will have to be transitioned to Microsoft. Yahoo!, in turn, will becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally.

Once completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will offer consumers an improved search experience, advertisers will see better volume and efficiency, and web publishers will be offered better monetization opportunities.

“This breakthrough search alliance means Yahoo! can focus even more on our own innovative search experience,” Yahoo! chief executive officer Carol Bartz said in a statement. “Yahoo! gets to do what we do best: combine our science and technology with compelling content to build personally relevant online experiences for our users and customers.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer agreed with Bartz’s, adding that there is much work to be done to create a competitive search service. “Although we are just at the beginning of this process, we have reached an exciting milestone,” Ballmer said. “I believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo! will promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to advertisers and publishers.”

The companies hope to incorporate Yahoo’s algorithmic search into a usable offering at least in the US by the end of the year. They also hope to make significant progress transitioning US advertisers and publishers prior to the 2010 holiday season, however, they may wait until 2011 if it seems that the transition will be more effective after the holiday season. Either way, all global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.

The transaction was previously cleared by regulators in Australia, Brazil and Canada, however, the terms of the agreement required clearance by US and European regulators before commencing work. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Yahoo! are continuing to work with regulators in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to ensure that they have all relevant information necessary to evaluate the transaction before work commences there.

Go Daddy Supports Alipay, China’s Top Online Payment Platform

Adapting to its growing worldwide customer base, US-based web host and domain registrar Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) offering Alipay (www.alipay.com), China’s leading payment platform, making it easier for Chinese customers to build and maintain an online presence.

With more than 270 million registered users, Alipay facilitates approximately five million online payments daily, topping more than $180 million in total transaction volume. PayPal, by comparison, has more than 153 million user accounts worldwide. What sets Alipay apart from other online payment platforms is that it holds funds in escrow until the product is received, making it a popular and trusted option.

“We already have thousands of customers in China,” Go Daddy chief executive officer and founder Bob Parsons said in a statement. “Offering Alipay just makes doing business online with us that much easier — and that’s important to us.”

China has experienced explosive growth of Internet users and their adoption of new technologies, with the number of Chinese Internet users ballooning to more than the entire population of the US according to state figures.

“Alipay is delighted to provide secure third-party online payment support to Go Daddy users,” Alipay president Polo Shao said in a statement. “Ensuring safe and convenient payment for our customers is Alipay’s number one priority.”

In a further effort to appeal to Chinese customers, Go Daddy is also now able to offer Chinese-character .ORG domain name registration.

A global provider of web hosting and SSL certificates, Go Daddy further expanded its international presence last year when it announced a new data center in the Netherlands to improve the performance of sites for European users by moving content closer to end users.

Out of its more than 7.5 million Go Daddy customers, 20 percent are located outside the US.

In addition to Alipay, Go Daddy also accepts credit cards, PayPal, personal checks and cash under the “GoodAsGold” option for its products and services.

Wordpress Outage Caused by Router Issue

Blogging community Wordpress (www.wordpress.com) revealed via its blog Friday that it suffered a 110 minute outage on Thursday afternoon after experiencing some issues with its router.

In what is considered the longest outage for the site in four years, the problem affected 10.2 million blogs and resulted in about 5.5 million lost pageviews.

In a blog post, Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg said that an “unscheduled change to a core route” at the site’s data center led to the outage.

Mullenweg writes: “We are still gathering details, but it appears an unscheduled change to a core router by one of our data center providers messed up our network in a way we haven’t experienced before, and broke the site. It also broke all the mechanisms for failover between our locations in San Antonio and Chicago. All of your data was safe and secure, we just couldn’t serve it.”

He also added that the Wordpress was working on a “concrete plan’ to ensure that a similar issue does not happen in the future.

Web Host Go Daddy Adopts Parallels Small Business Panel

In a major customer win for Cloud technology provider Parallels (www.parallels.com), domain registrar and web hosting giant Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) has begun offering Parallels Small Business Panel services to its more than 7.5 million customers, which include a great deal of small businesses.

According to its announcement this week, Parallels Small Business Panel 10.1 has been adopted by Go Daddy as the latest firm to offer its hosting customers a self-service control panel designed for small businesses that offers simple wizards and productivity tools for collaboration, file sharing and business management. Within months of the release, Parallels’ “IT in a Box” solution has attracted some of the biggest names in the industry including The Planet, Softlayer, Softcom, Codero, Layershift, ServInt, Arsys, Network Group Europe and Host Europe.

“This has been one of our most successful product releases and delivers profitable services to small businesses,” Parallels worldwide service providers division president Jack Zubarev said in a statement. “To have such a quick uptake of our product by some of the largest companies in the industry is a testament to how Parallels Small Business Panel fills the growing IT needs of small businesses. Parallels really values partnerships like Go Daddy and is committed to delivering products that enable cloud services providers to move beyond basic hosting services and offer value-added applications and services.”

Parallels Small Business Panel gives users an intuitive interface designed to connect users to the right applications, which can be installed with a single click with no need for special training or technical knowledge. In addition, Parallels Small Business Panel incorporates the functionality of additional Parallels solutions for free, including Parallels Sitebuilder and Parallels Power Pack.

“Offering Parallels Small Business Panel at Go Daddy helps small to mid-sized businesses receive the advantages larger companies do with similar, advanced products for a cost small businesses can afford,” Go Daddy president and chief operating officer Warren Adelman said in a statement. “These businesses don’t need an IT administrator to take advantage of the Small Business Panel because of the easy wizard-driven interface. Parallels understands what small businesses need and Go Daddy is pleased to offer their Small Business Panel to our customers.”

Go Daddy customers now have access to more than 200 applications that increase productivity, efficiency and creativity but require no prior knowledge of the product to realize the benefits. Some of the top applications available for free include Wordpress, SugarCRM, Droopal and Mumbo.

Parallels is having its 5th annual Parallels Summit in Miami from February 22 to 24, featuring networking opportunities with industry peers, and information on how to build better businesses and profit from using cloud-based services.

Social media boosts small firms’ internet marketing

Social media, such as blogs and Facebook pages, is becoming an increasingly important tool for helping small firms to identify and attract new customers, research has found.

The Small Business Success Index from the Center for Excellent in Service (CES) at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business and Network Solutions shows adoption of social media among these companies doubled last year from 12 per cent to 24 per cent.

In the main, firms are looking to blogs, LinkedIn profiles and Facebook pages to build on their other internet marketing services, with 61 per cent saying they use them to bring in new clients.

Among companies that have added social media to their marketing mix, 75 per cent said they are on a social network and 57 per cent use business sites like LinkedIn.

A further 45 per cent believe social media will be profitable to their business over the coming year.

CES director Janet Wagner said: “Time spent on Twitter, Facebook and blogs is an investment in making it easier for small businesses to compete.”

David Wilson of the Sydney Morning Herald said search engine optimisation is vital for smaller firms looking to get blogs and company websites on the first page of search engine results.

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