Industry News from WebHostingTalk.com

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - January 6, 2009 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, has released a new promotion, including a free month of service, coupled with free customized migration assistance from its Advanced Services team.

The Planet's Advanced Services experts will assess the customer's environment and develop a customized migration plan that includes a 'migration checklist' detailing IP address changes, DNS redirection and control panel reconfiguration, among others. The month of free service is good for the new customer's entire hosting solution. It includes any type of dedicated servers, private or virtual racks, and add-on products such as storage and data protection, firewalls and load balancers.

Douglas J. Erwin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at The Planet remarked, ''In today's difficult economic climate, customers have expressed concerns about the quality and long-term viability of their hosting providers, particularly with their entire business resting in the hands of companies that could collapse under financial pressure. We've recently announced both a $45 million credit facility and a new 86,000 square foot data center that will open in May to accommodate our colocation and complex systems businesses. We are well positioned to provide the increasing demand we are experiencing for new and existing services. Backed by our world-class data centers and network, we have a well-earned reputation as the best company for one-stop IT infrastructure shopping for the small- and medium-sized business.''

Ultimately, The Planet's goal is to provide:

• High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 25,000 small and medium size businesses and 14.1 million Web sites worldwide. The Planet Alpha division provides the widest array of self-managed dedicated servers and advanced services backed by 24x7x365 support. The Planet Northstar Managed Hosting division combines a proactive methodology and seasoned IT experts to deliver a fully managed hosting solution, with the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and an enterprise-class network.

To qualify for the offer, new customers must present a recent invoice from a competing hosting provider. For more information, please visit the Web site at the following address: www.theplanet.com/dedicated-servers/server-specials/?id=MG090101.

For more about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Dallas, Texas - (The Hosting News) - Jauary 6, 2009 - Managed hosting provider and online backup company, FireHost, Inc., is making available an enterprise-level secure hosting solution, designed for SMBs, including best practices, policies, hardware and software.

Chris Drake, Founder of FireHost remarked, ''While we believe developers should secure their websites and applications as much as possible, it's not reality. That's why we made it our responsibility to inspect every kilobyte of traffic to and from our customers' sites and enforce policies as needed for our customers and their site visitors' protection.''

Within the last year, Internet security threats have completely changed their style. In the past, port vulnerabilities and services exposure were the biggest concerns. Firewalls solved those holes by simply blocking access to all unused ports. Now, the biggest vulnerability utilizes port 80 and 443. These ports can't be blocked as port 80 is required for non-SSL website traffic and port 443 is require for sites with SSL. Hackers are attacking websites from the website themselves and companies without application security are having theirs and their customers sensitive data stolen and sold on the black market.

In addition to data theft, the most common attack is SQL Injections. According to security vendor Sophos, 16,000 new websites are hit by the attacks every day. Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, .NET, classic ASP, shopping carts, Community Server, PHPBB websites have all been hit with SQL Injections. FireHost's Blog (www.fireblog.com) has a video available to see the impact of a SQL Injection that affected BusinessWeek's website.

FireHost protects their customers from SQL Injections, Cross Site Scripting, Path Traversal, Bad User Agents, DOS attacks, and more. Customers receive automated reports for their protected websites and applications from all the allowed and blocked traffic. Application protection is available for both Managed Shared Hosting customers and Managed Dedicated Server customers.

FireHost also provides continuous website vulnerability monitoring from within the FireHost network ensuring the site is getting tested without protection. All vulnerability testing is done in a manner that's non-destructive to websites and databases.

Ken Richardson, Security Engineer at FireHost remarked. ''The only true way to test vulnerabilities is to attack the website from within the security zone. Doing this provides our clients the piece of mind that we're finding their websites' weaknesses.''

For qualified businesses who are concerned that their website is vulnerable, FireHost provides a Hacker Report for no charge.

FireHost, Inc. is based in Dallas, Texas and focuses on delivering enterprise quality fast and secure managed web hosting to SMBs. Specializing in website security and high traffic needs, FireHost's engineers ensure all customers are not only protected but that their website or web application is delivered as fast as possible.

To learn more, please visit: www.firehost.com.

Santa Clara, California - (The Hosting News) - Jauary 6, 2009 - Technology firm and web hosting provider, Sun Microsystems, Inc., is leading a research consortium of global efforts to solve accessibility challenges for devices from cell phones to desktops and web applications.

The group of over 20 other companies and organizations, aims to help define new approaches and solutions for building accessibility support into future information and communication technologies. Funded by a grant awarded by the European Commission,the AEGIS Project is based on the Sun-led proposal and technical architecture. A key component of the AEGIS Project is that it will leverage open source technologies wherever possible.

Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris, AEGIS Project Coordinator and Research Director at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas explained, ''The accessibility challenges of the new generations of desktop, web, and mobile technologies require new approaches - ones in which accessibility is designed in from the start, rather than bolted on as an afterthought. The AEGIS project, with its holistic approach starting with developer tools on through to the platforms the accessible applications run on - and with the end-user validation provided by the disability organization members of the AEGIS consortium - is the most promising and thorough approach to accessibility we have seen in decades.''

The AEGIS (open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards) Project participants include: Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (project coordinator), the ACE Centre Advisory Trust, Adaptive Technology Resource Centre of the University of Toronto, AOL, Blue Point IT Solutions S.R.L., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the University of Cambridge, Conncept Swiss, Czech Technical University in Prague, European Platform for Rehabilitation, Femtio Procent Data AB, Vodafone Spain Foundation, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering, ONCE Foundation, P50, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Research In Motion Limited (RIM), Royal National Institute of Blind People, SingularLogic S.A., Sahlgrenska University Hospital - DART and Sun Microsystems. Advising the AEGIS project is a distinguished scientific advisory board comprised of worldwide leaders in the field of accessibility.

Jeet Kaul, senior vice president of the Client Software Group at Sun offered, ''Every second of every day that passes, the number of new mobile devices and web sites grows at an astounding rate - with much of that growth bringing accessibility problems for people with disabilities. By building support for accessibility into the next generation of rich internet application frameworks and mobile devices, we can help ensure that people with disabilities can participate in the digital age. Sun is pleased to be leading the AEGIS Project and bringing our expertise in open source and accessibility technology to this important initiative.''

Richard Orme, Head of Accessibility, RNIB noted, ''E-inclusion in the Information Society is of paramount importance. It is imperative that we close the digital divide in this ever evolving world. RNIB is committed to participating in projects that will bring about positive change in the lives of blind and partially sighted people. We're excited to be part of the AEGIS project, working with developers, companies and organizations to bring about wholesale improvements in accessibility to ICT solutions. RNIB fully supports the endeavour of improving accessibility from the ground up, building accessibly features into developer tools and ratifying the outcomes through end user testing.''

Tom Wlodkowski, Director of Accessibility at AOL commented, ''AOL is excited to participate in such a dynamic consortium by contributing solutions that advance accessibility of rich Internet applications. As a pioneer in the web accessibility space, AOL has recently deployed a keyboard-friendly web mail application that aligns functionality with widely used software e-mail clients. We're pleased that Sun recognized our commitment to the disability audience as they assembled this innovative project.''

The AEGIS Project will involve research and prototypes that address a broad range of disabilities including: vision impairment, hearing impairment, physical impairment, and a range of cognitive/developmental disabilities. The participants plan to address accessibility challenges across three key areas: open source desktop computing, Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and mobile devices; with a multitude of research and development goals within each of these areas. In addressing these challenges, the AEGIS Project will leverage the pervasiveness of Java (TM) technology across desktops, the web, and mobile devices. Java is one of the world's most popular software platforms and is present on more than 800 million desktop computers and over 2.2 billion mobile phones worldwide.

Sun Microsystems develops technologies utilized in more than 100 countries and on the web.

To learn more information on the AEGIS Project, please visit: www.aegis-project.eu.

For more about Sun's Startup Essentials program, visit: www.sun.com/startups.

Union City, New Jersey - (The Hosting News) - January 6, 2009 - Web hosting provider, Host Department, has debuted the launch of its upgraded Microsoft SQL Server to version 2005, which is divided into Express and standard editions.

Ivan Seidenberg, Operational and Technical Manager at Host Department noted, ''With the upgrade, our clients can have better web hosting experience. Constantly improving our service has always been our goals each day.''

The SQL Server editions are designed to be specified for customers, based on hosting plans. The Express Edition is offered to customers of its earlier plans, including the No Limit Developer Windows plans. The Standard edition is designed for Premium Hosting Windows customers.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is designed to enable customers to access native support for managing XML data, in addition to relational data. It also added some extensions to the T-SQL language to allow embedding XQuery queries in T-SQL, DBAs management tools, and many more improvements over version 2000.

Established in 1997, Host Department is based in Fremont, CA with data centers located in Fremont and Santa Clara, CA. Host Department emphasizes service to individuals, small/medium sized businesses (SMBs), and large corporations, in order to facilitate e-commerce and allow for focus on core competencies. The company currently serves customers worldwide with reseller, premium, specialty and free web hosting, and domain name registration services supported by 24/7 support. The company also offers web design and development services, as well as search engine submission.

To learn more, please visit: www.hostdepartment.com.

Basking Ridge, New Jersey - (The Hosting News) - January 6, 2009 - Web host and Internet solutions firm, Verizon Business, has expanded and improved its global networks, with enhanced speed, availability, diversity and resiliency for business and government customers, on a worldwide basis.

Fred Briggs, executive vice president, network operations and technology, for Verizon Business explained, ''Our reputation of achieving some of the highest standards of network performance is strengthened each year through the shrewd strategies and innovative technologies we successfully implement. ''The Verizon global network is the foundation for offering solutions that help organizations better achieve their missions. Our global customers know they can depend on us to serve their needs by delivering reliability, scalability, capacity and speed, year after year.''

The investments were part of the approximately $17 billion Verizon Communications planned to spend this year building, operating and integrating one of the most advanced, reliable and broadband-capable wireless and wireline networks in the world.?

Leadership in Undersea-Cable Meshing

Two years after launching its Atlantic network mesh, the company continued its leadership in undersea-cable meshing by completing a seven-way diverse transpacific mesh in September - adding nodes in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea to the existing nodes in Japan. A network mesh provides multiple alternate paths for rerouting traffic in the event of a network interruption.

The Asia-Pacific mesh increases network availability, reducing provisioning intervals from three weeks to one week and lowering latency (the time it takes for a packet of data to get from one designated point to another) up to 15 percent from the U.S. to Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The company also completed the first phase of its North America mesh this year, deploying 22 new mesh nodes in the U.S. and expanding its network into Canada, with new nodes located in Toronto and Montreal.

In May, Verizon Business joined 16 companies in a consortium to build the undersea cable system called Europe India Gateway (EIG). Connecting Europe, the Middle East and India, the 14,000-kilometer (9,000 miles) cable system is expected to be completed in 2010. The EIG will provide Verizon Business customers a second diverse landing in France, where the company will operate the landing station that connects to the Verizon Business ultra long haul (ULH) network in Europe.

During the third quarter, Verizon Business announced it would be the first to market with the Trans-Pacific Express (TPE), the submarine cable network that connects the United States with mainland China. The cable already carries 40 percent of all Verizon Business transpacific Private IP traffic.

Built directly between the U.S. and mainland China, South Korea and Taiwan, TPE operates at a capacity of 3.2 terabits per second (Tbps). This 18,000-kilometer (11,000 miles) cable system has 80 wavelengths per fiber, the highest wave density, or capacity, of any similar distance submarine cable in the world.

This year also saw Verizon Business adding 12 new markets in four countries on its Private IP network, with network expansion into Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan and Iceland. In addition, the company also added diversity with new Private IP nodes in Taipei, Seoul and Shanghai, as well as a one in Dubai in partnership with du, the United Arab Emirates integrated telecommunications service provider.

Expanded Global Capabilities
Verizon Business also completed extensive network expansion in the Asia-Pacific region. The company built backbone links to several major Asian hubs and added another node in Shanghai for diversity. Partnering with China Telecom, the company expanded its network in China and, for the second year in a row, China Telecom awarded Verizon Business its Most Valued Partner award.

In January, the company received a license to offer international and national long-distance services in India and, six months later, launched its Private IP service there. In a joint venture with the Videocon Group, Verizon Business completed deploying its Private IP network in five cities (Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad) and looks toward expanding both coverage and service in India.
Early in the year, the company also expanded its Private IP service in Mexico with new nodes in Mexico City and Monterrey.

ULH and CPA Strategies Continue

In 2004, Verizon Business was the first major communications service provider to announce deployment of an extensive ULH network in the U.S. ULH improves network performance and efficiency while enabling quicker network restoration and provisioning.

This year, the company continued expansion, adding more than 8,000 km (5,000 miles) in the U.S., bringing the total U.S. ULH network to 58,300 km (36,000 miles). Globally, the company launched 155 km (100 miles) in Japan in 2008, adding to its already existing global presence in Europe where the company has 3,100 km (1,900 miles).

Continuing to deploy its converged packet architecture (CPA), Verizon Business added 18 new cities in seven countries, including Mexico, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada and Poland. This brings the total Verizon Business CPA presence to 76 cities in 24 countries.

CPA enables convergence of all services onto a single packet access connection via a simple Ethernet interface, allowing customers to take advantage of their existing network equipment while quickly adding incremental services.

Most Connected Internet Backbone for 10th Consecutive Year

In September, for the 10th consecutive year, TeleGeography recognized Verizon Business as the world's most connected Internet backbone. Using autonomous systems (AS) connectivity as its measure, TeleGeography found that Verizon Business has the greatest number of AS connections of any public IP network in the world. The autonomous system ranking is a measure of the connectedness of an IP network to the rest of the public Internet. The AS ranking demonstrates the closeness of the network to the rest of the Internet via the number of 'hops' (segments on network routes) data must take to reach its destination.

During 2008, the company continued pushing 100G (gigabit) technology closer to commercial deployment by participating in two key 100G trials. In September, Verizon and Nokia Siemens Networks set a new distance record of 1,040 km (650 miles) for 100G optical transmission across field fiber. A month later, Verizon and Nortel announced the results of a trial that achieved better tolerance for signal distortion than standard 10G transmission. Verizon Business also continued to expand its IP backbone with 40G capabilities.

Mr. Briggs concluded, ''We continue to invest in global network expansion and in innovative technologies that give our customers a competitive edge - whether it's on the other side of the world or close to home.''

Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), is a global leader in communications and IT solutions. We combine professional expertise with the world's most connected IP network to deliver award-winning communications, IT, information security and network solutions. We securely connect today's extended enterprises of widespread and mobile customers, partners, suppliers and employees - enabling them to increase productivity and efficiency and help preserve the environment. Verizon Business serves many of the world's largest businesses and governments - including 96 percent of the Fortune 1000 and thousands of government agencies and educational institutions and its network technologies services to accelerate business.

To learn more, please visit: www.verizonbusiness.com.

New York, New York - (The Hosting News) - January 6, 2009 - The SSON and IQPC Annual Shared Services Excellence Awards categories have been revealed for the 13th Annual Shared Services Week, scheduled to take place March 22-27, 2009 at the Omni Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida.

The categories include:

• Best Mature Captive Services Delivery (over 3 years operation)
• Best Mature Outsourced Services Delivery (over 3 years operation)
• Best New Captive SSC (under 3 years operation)
• Best New Outsourced SSC (under 3 years operation)
• Best Shared Services and Sourcing Thought Leader
• Shared Services Employer of the Year

Each application will be considered in isolation for that award, and participants may enter in as many or few categories as they choose. All awards applications must be submitted by January 30, 2009.

The Shared Services Excellence Awards are open to all shared services organizations (SSOs) from all countries. The awards are judged by a leading panel of industry experts and provide an opportunity for shared services professionals to gain recognition for excellence and initiative.

Members of the Shared Services Excellence Awards Judging Panel are:

• Leo Hazlewood, Director, Shared Services, SAIC
• Gary Silsbe, Director of Operational Excellence, TELUS
• Richard Rowan, Global Director of Shared Services, TRW
• Carol Kuntz, Vice President of Operations, CNA Insurance
• Jim Rundgren, Manager, Continuous Improvement and Operations Administration, Northrop Grumman
• Melissa Lytell, Director, HR Shared Services, U.S. Department of State
• Linda Taglialatela, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Resources, U.S. Department of State
• Lee Coulter, Vice President of Shared Services, Kraft

First Place and Honorary Mention Awards will be announced and presented to the winners at the Black Tie Gala Dinner Awards ceremony held on Tuesday, March 24th at Shared Services Week 2009 in Orlando.

For more information, contact Naomi Secor at 212-885-2742 or naomi.secor@iqpc.com.

IQPC provides business executives with tailored practical conferences, large-scale events, topical seminars and in-house training programs, keeping them up-to-date with industry trends, technological developments and the regulatory landscape. Producing over 1,500 events annually around the world, IQPC continues to grow and has offices in cities across six continents.

For more information about the awards, please visit: www.sharedservicesweek.com/awards.php.

To learn more about IQPC, please visit: www.iqpc.com.

Atlanta, Georgia - (The Hosting News) - January 6, 2009 - Web hosting and managed integrated VoIP services provider, Cbeyond, has released a new Enhanced Web Hosting service for small businesses, including a design-it-yourself tool, marketing capabilities and an e-commerce solution.

Geoff Cummings, product manager for Web Hosting at Cbeyond remarked, ''Consumers research purchases in a variety of ways, and an attractive, easy-to-use website is an integral part of a company's brand, not just a 'nice-to-have' feature. Small businesses need a professional online presence to effectively market their company and sell their products and services. With Cbeyond's Enhanced Web Hosting application, small businesses can establish, promote and manage their online presence, as well as provide customers with 24-hour access to their products and services via a dynamic website.''

Cbeyond's Enhanced Web Hosting service allows small businesses to quickly and easily manage their online assets to effectively market their company, promote their products and services, and acquire new customers. Small businesses can purchase Enhanced Web Hosting as a base package with the option of adding Enhanced Marketing and Enhanced E-commerce packages as needed.

Cbeyond's Enhanced Web Hosting package offers small businesses the essential tools to launch and manage their online Web presence. With this package, Cbeyond can host a company's website, configure their domain or transfer an existing domain to the company's Cbeyond account. Further, the design-it-yourself Web application available with this package enables small businesses to build and customize their own website by choosing from more than 200 pre-configured, easily customizable templates. The package supports flash and video files to create a rich user experience.

By adding the Enhanced Marketing package as an upgrade, Cbeyond customers can effectively target their prospects, communicate with their existing customers and drive traffic to their website. With this package, customers have the ability to quickly and easily build banner ads, register with search engines and achieve search engine optimization. Cbeyond also offers eMarketing guides to provide small businesses with best practices for managing their web site. Cbeyond's Enhanced E-commerce package is an upgrade which allows customers to easily promote products and services online. With this package, small businesses can build an online store that accepts payment, tax and shipping information.

Customers also receive all of the Enhanced Web Hosting and Enhanced Marketing applications when they purchase this package. With enhanced applications and customer-friendly tools, Cbeyond Web Hosting is an effective and easy-to-use method for small businesses to market their company and sell their products. For more information about Cbeyond Enhanced Web Hosting and to hold an interactive demo of the Design-It-Yourself Web site Creator, visit www.cbeyond.net/services/internet-hosting.htm.

Cbeyond, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBEY - News) is a leading IP-based managed services provider that delivers integrated packages of communications and IT services to more than 40,000 small businesses throughout the United States. Cbeyond offers more than 30 productivity-enhancing applications including local and long-distance voice, broadband Internet, mobile, BlackBerry, broadband laptop access, voicemail, email, web hosting, fax-to-email, data backup, file-sharing and virtual private networking. Cbeyond manages these services over a private, 100-percent Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) facilities-based network.

To learn more about Cbeyond, please visit: www.cbeyond.net.

Armonk, New York - (The Hosting News) - January 6, 2009 - Hosted application solutions provider, IBM, has completed its tender offer for the shares of Business Rule Management System (BRMS), Optimization, Visualization, and Supply Chain Management (SCM) portfolio firm, ILOG, in the amount of approximately $340 million USD (EUR 215 million).

The tender offer, announced July 28, 2008, was finalized after IBM acquired all outstanding stock in ILOG and satisfied the other conditions of the offer. Headquartered in Paris, ILOG has more than 2,500 customers, 850 employees and operations in 30 countries around the world. The ILOG Business Rule Management System (BRMS), Optimization, Visualization, and Supply Chain Management (SCM) portfolios will build upon IBM software and business process management (BPM) leadership across a broad range of applications and environments.

Tom Rosamilia, general manager, IBM WebSphere Software remarked, ''As a leader in business rules, optimization, visualization and supply chain management software, we are pleased to welcome the ILOG customers and the ILOG employees to the WebSphere family. The acquisition of ILOG is an important element within our overall SOA strategy and the key addition of the ILOG BRMS to IBM's BPM portfolio will help IBM clients to become more dynamic. ILOG brings significant new capabilities to IBM that will provide agile, flexible applications for real-time response and confident decision-making.''

ILOG technology is anticipated to add significant capability across IBM's software platform and the addition of BRMS will provide another dimension of leadership for the IBM BPM portfolio. This includes improved rules and business optimization for WebSphere and Information Management offerings, better visualization for WebSphere, Lotus and Tivoli products and solutions, as well as enhanced optimization and efficient supply chain management assets for planning and scheduling within a service oriented architecture (SOA).

The ILOG BRMS products help businesses increase the agility of their decision making by letting them adapt and respond dynamically. Based on applied mathematics and computer science, the ILOG optimization products allow enterprises to cope with many operating constraints. The software enables them to transform business objectives, resources and operational constraints into best possible action plans and schedules to enhance service, revenue and profits.

ILOG Visualization enhances an organization's collaboration, role-based, and decision-making capabilities by building interactive user interfaces through diagrams, maps, schedules, charts and editors. ILOG Supply Chain Management solutions, which include Network Design, Inventory Optimization, Production Planning and Scheduling, provide an opportunity for leaner manufacturing and green supply chain management.

ILOG offers tools and technologies for business managers, analysts, architects and developers to use as they analyze, plan, track and improve business processes. Today, hundreds of large enterprises use ILOG technologies to automate the allocation of scarce resources and to build smart interfaces into their business processes. Additionally, scientists and mathematicians from hundreds of universities use ILOG products for advanced research, design, and analysis. For example, a business rule might be applied to elevate a premier customer to the front of a phone queue as part of a customer service process. ILOG's BRMS provides users with tools that allow greater control over the criteria that determine how and when to route those premier customers.

This allows businesses to accelerate the process of initiating policy changes that may be driven by market trends or competitive activity to ensure customer satisfaction is maintained. The ease of business rule management helps reduce costs while customer satisfaction and retention translates into increased revenue. Aviva Canada Inc., a leading property and casualty insurance group, selected ILOG JRules, a key offering in the ILOG business rule management system (BRMS) product line, for use in its common service delivery platform. Based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that also includes IBM WebSphere and IBM's Insurance Application Architecture (IAA), the platform will help Aviva automate its underwriting process for personal lines and auto, reducing the carrier's time-to-market to incorporate new or updated business policies. Aviva can implement rule changes in days or real time.

sMichael Lin, vice president e-commerce, Aviva noted, ''We selected ILOG JRules because of its ease-of-use, advanced rule management capabilities and tight integration in a service oriented architecture. Since business rules are a fundamental part of insurance processes, ILOG's track record as a BRMS provider and the support we received were also deciding factors for us.''

ILOG will become part of the IBM WebSphere software portfolio. Consistent with IBM's software strategy, ILOG clients' and partners' investments in existing IBM and ILOG technologies will be preserved, allowing customers to take advantage of the broader set of capabilities without the need to replace existing systems.

The acquisition of ILOG will strengthen IBM's business process management (BPM) and SOA position by providing customers a broad set of rule management tools for information and application lifecycle management across a comprehensive platform, including IBM's leading WebSphere application development and management platform. Many of the ILOG products will also become part of IBM's Industry Frameworks, which are integrated solutions that support industry specific business and technology standards.

Clients who use role based business spaces will now be able to take advantage of the visualization capabilities of ILOG to help improve the variety and sophistication of their views. In addition to diagramming and charting, these visualizations can be used by business space to provide more robust web-based BPM capabilities such as process modeling. With more than 7,000 client engagements worldwide, IBM is a worldwide leader in SOA and BPM. This leadership is further illustrated by a community of greater than 120,000 architects and developers, more than 150 universities incorporating IBM's SOA and BPM curricula, and more than 6,000 IBM Business Partners building SOA skills, solutions, and practices.

Data centers are the backbone of information technology (IT) infrastructure for businesses and other organizations, with powerful servers and storage systems running technology including software applications, email and web sites. IBM owns and operates more than 8 million square feet of data center space -- more than any other company in the world.

With more than 7,000 client engagements worldwide, IBM is a worldwide leader in SOA and BPM. This leadership is further illustrated by a community of greater than 120,000 architects and developers, more than 150 universities incorporating IBM's SOA and BPM curricula, and more than 6,000 IBM Business Partners building SOA skills, solutions, and practices.

For more information about IBM, please visit: www.ibm.com.

San Jose, California - (The Hosting News) - January 5, 2009 - Dedicated server, colocation and shared web hosting company, 3FN.Net, Triple Fiber Network, has completed the enhancement of its European backbone, upgrading major web hosting network equipment within all European key cities.

The company has achieved considerable improvement of IP network connectivity performance, by installing highly reliable network equipment. 3FN has provided its web hosting customers with fully resilient network, for faster and more reliable web hosting services for all our European customers. The company maintains that its development strategy also embraces further backbone upgrades all over the world.

The priorities of further backbone upgrades will be determined by the demand of its web hosting customers. The company's main aspiration is to make web hosting services available with a top level of quality from every spot on a globe. Thus, in the near future, all of its web hosting services will be upgraded and enhanced, even if there is no obvious need present.

Dean McToner, 3FN official representative remarked, ''We are happy to announce such an upgrade as it means faster and more reliable web hosting services for all our European customers. Our development strategy also embraces further backbone upgrades all over the world. The priorities of further backbone upgrades will be determined by the demand of our web hosting customers. Being a world leading web hosting provider, our company's main aspiration is to make our web hosting services available with a top level of quality from every spot on a globe. Thus, in near future all our web hosting services will be upgraded and enhanced even if there is no need in it; all upgrades are implemented in order to power our customers with unprecedented quality of web hosting.''

As new better network equipment appears on a web hosting market 3FN immediately implements it in its entire web hosting network. Although, the web hosting company utilizes only best and proven equipment as this is a guarantee of high performable and reliable web hosting. This upgrade combining with recent improvements allow 3FN's web hosting customers to benefit from the outstanding backbone providing premium web hosting.

As the requirements for better IP connectivity grow in order to provide web hosting with outmost quality the company has made this upgrade. Such an upgrade of European web hosting backbone is a long term investment that will bring much more advantages with web hosting services by 3FN. All European customers will now experience the best and fast IP connectivity performance of the whole network.

In December, 3FN enhanced services, with hardware monitoring and replacement service upgrades. Triple Fiber Network announced the major improvement of hardware monitoring and replacement services, to significantly enhance web hosting services. The web hosting company constantly improves hardware monitoring and replacement services in order to achieve maximum reliability and efficiency of its web hosting.

The improvement of web hosting hardware monitoring and replacement services allows to perform any replacements or upgrades immediately providing web hosting with the flawless functioning and maximum possible uptime of all web hosting services. Due to recent improvement web hosting by 3FN remains stable and persistent. In case of malfunctioning within any web hosting service broken server part: central processor, power unit, RAM, or HDD, is replaced by a new one immediately. In addition, the servers can be upgraded instantly if that is required by web hosting customers. As the result such web hosting powered with 24/7/365 monitoring and replacement services becomes a perfect web hosting solution suiting any web hosting requirements. 3FN utilizes the best and most proven hardware as well as hardware monitoring and replacement approaches in all its datacenters, therefore, achieving maximum reliability and stability of its web hosting services.

The US based provider of dedicated servers, shared hosting and collocation hosting services, Triple Fiber Network, 3FN, Inc. is best known for the quality excellence and high reliability of all hosting services provided on a global basis. Triple Fiber Network has a flawless reputation of reliable hosting provider, providing the high-quality and efficiency of all dedicated hosting services within last 10 years. Since that time the company has created one of the most biggest and powerful network of dedicated servers with main datacenter located in Silicon Valley. The Headquarters are located in San Jose, California, the company has also established offices in UK, India, Ukraine and EU. Triple Fiber Network has founded the subdivision called 3FN Marketing - an online pay per click advertising network and webmaster affiliate program. 3FN Marketing offers optimized targeted pay per click advertising for those who want to promote their websites or products and generous revenue shares up to 95% for webmasters. The company provides customers with 24/7/365 support via the toll-free telephone, online chat and ticket system.

To learn more, please visit: www.3fn.net.

New York, New York - (The Hosting News) - January 5, 2009 - The opening of an additional data center, to provide increased processing capacity, as well as further redundancy and failover capabilities, has been debuted by Fulcrum database marketing solutions.

David King, CEO of Fulcrum noted, ''Fulcrum's solutions deliver gains in both revenue and profits, which has led to rapid growth in the number of client databases we manage, particularly in the current economy. This additional center will give us more flexibility and processing power, plus enhance our disaster recovery and redundancy capabilities.''

In addition to managing enterprise data warehouses and large-scale marketing databases, Fulcrum provides advanced analytics and customer management technology that enable companies to market to their customers more effectively. The databases and applications require high-availability, high-capacity technology platforms. The new center, which has been in the planning stages for several months, was originally conceived as a disaster recovery site. However, due to the company's growth, the new facility will be a hot site and provide both redundant processing and failover capabilities. The facility is expected to be operational in early 2009.

Fulcrum services leading businesses to increase and accelerate the profitability of marketing programs. Fulcrum offers a fully integrated database marketing solution, from building and managing rich, multi-channel databases, to predictive and segmentation modeling, using its advanced analytical tools, and executing customer-centric marketing. Fulcrum is headquartered in New York City with its major operational center in Fairfield, CT.

To learn more, please visit: www.fulcrum.com.

New York, New York - (The Hosting News) - January 5, 2009 - Toolbar, homepage and content division of digital media and advertising company, MIVA, Inc., has released the beta version of its free ALOT Desktop software application.

Designed to enable widget display directly on desktops, without open browser windows, users can choose from a range of different widgets which may be customized and added to desktops. The widgets include an online radio player, news headlines, weather and celebrity gossip. It is intended that with future releases of the product, users will be able to access any widget from MIVA Direct's rapidly expanding online widget portfolio, ALOT Buttons.

Peter Corrao, President and CEO of MIVA explained, ''Our objective with ALOT is to create an integrated widget platform that users can interact with across a variety of different touch points. We believe that adding increased integration through the launch of products like ALOT Desktop not only enhances user experience, but also provides a valuable platform for brand and direct response advertisers to reach potential customers.''

The ALOT brand was launched by MIVA Direct in Q4 2007 and is designed to 'Make the Internet Easy' by aggregating 'best of the web' content within widgets that can be displayed across toolbars, homepages and now desktops. ALOT's toolbar and homepage products come pre-configured across 40 different categories, enabling MIVA Direct to build up niche vertical audiences. The ALOT music and recipe toolbars, for example, currently have over 900,000 and 500,000 users respectively.

The beta release of ALOT Desktop follows the October launch of MIVA Direct's new, fully customizable toolbar and homepage products, ALOT Toolbar and ALOT Home. Together, ALOT's toolbar and homepage products generate over 110 million searches each month1. According to an October 2008 report from Razorfish, 55% of ''connected consumers'' - people with broadband who use social networks and digital media - use widgets on their desktops with some frequency, and 62% use them on personalized homepages and social networking sites.

MIVA Direct operates a portfolio of consumer websites, interest-specific toolbars and personalized homepages. MIVA Direct's millions of active toolbars span a range of niche sectors including jokes, music, recipes and horoscopes and offer consumers search functionality in addition to one-click access to tailored content. MIVA Direct is owned by MIVA, Inc. (NASDAQ:MIVA - News).

MIVA, Inc. (NASDAQ:MIVA - News) is a global digital media company with a mission to deliver valuable digital audiences to advertisers. MIVA has two focuses to its business: owning and operating a growing portfolio of consumer destination sites and interest-specific toolbars, through its MIVA Direct division; and running a third-party contextual Pay-Per-Click ad network focused on key vertical sectors, through its MIVA Media division. MIVA, Inc. operates across North America and Europe.

To learn more, please visit: www.alot.com.

Royal Oak, Michigan - (The Hosting News) - January 5, 2008 - Web hosting company, Liberty Center One, has introduced its new Hosting Bailout Program, in an effort to assist Michigan businesses, by providing qualified companies with free migration, set-up and server rack space.

Rex Smith, President of Liberty Center One explained, ''As times get tougher, older data centers are faced with financial pressures that sometimes result in a reduction in their maintenance spending, thus harming redundancy and impacting uptime. Many older data centers simply do not have the infrastructure to accommodate modern servers' power and cooling requirements.''

The program is available through the end of January, 2009 and is designed to address the urgent needs of companies facing tough economic choices, power outages, and network outages and who are seeking cost-cutting alternatives while maintaining top service levels and keeping their critical business systems up and running. Liberty Center One has maintained 100.0% uptime since opening, while other local businesses and data centers have suffered downtime for various power, network and other critical service interruptions.

Other customers who will benefit from the program are hosting customers who are presently located in data centers that have experienced service interruptions. Customers interested in the program can call 248-802-8844 and ask about the bailout.

Mr. Smith added, ''Liberty has had 100% uptime since going online early in 2008 and we continue to invest in our systems and practices to maintain this record of uninterrupted services to our customers. We're not shooting for five nines. We're providing continuous service with no downtime.''

Under the Hosting Bailout Program, Liberty is providing free emergency migration assistance to qualified customers needing to relocate their servers. Liberty has already migrated hundreds of web sites, servers, and colocation customers to its state-of-the-art 20,000 square foot data center in Royal Oak, MI.

Liberty's design makes it one of the highest power density data centers in the mid-west with multiple layers of redundancy throughout its power, networking and security architecture. Every system has N+1 or higher redundancy enabling Liberty to maintain its record of 100% uptime. Liberty offers all modern networking solutions through multiple regional and national carriers with diverse paths and diverse entries.

Liberty Center One is a new breed of data center located in Royal Oak, MI. Liberty can host any customer solution regardless of space, power, networking, or bandwidth requirements. Liberty offers a full range of technology solutions, including fully managed, colocated, virtual, dedicated and shared hosting services. With its high power density architecture, Liberty can deliver more than 200 watts of fully redundant power per square foot to keep modern, high density computing equipment running without interruption. On-site IT hotel space is also available for short and long-term lease or for hot-spot disaster recovery services. Contact Liberty Center One by calling 248-802-8844.

To learn more, please visit: www.libertycenterone.com.

Noord-Holland, Amsterdam - (The Hosting News) - December 23, 2008 - Data center provider, EvoSwitch, has reduced the average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of its facilities, from 1.8 to 1.6.

The above power reduction resulted in a 20 percent increase in energy saving - from 20 to 40 percent - compared to a traditional data center.

The ultimate goal of EvoSwitch is to achieve an energy saving of 70 to 80 percent. The extra 20 percent saving in energy consumption is largely the result of further investments in low-energy equipment and control systems. The expansion of the data center in 2008 also contributed to the improved PUE.

The first phase of EvoSwitch (2,000 m2) is already fully occupied by equipment from customers. This phase was completed in April 2007. Part of the second phase (2,000 m2 extra) is also almost fully used. The second phase was completed shortly before the summer of 2008 and required an additional investment of 9 million Euros. When the next phases are completed, EvoSwitch will have a potential floor area capacity of more than 9,000 m2.

Laurens Rosenthal, Innovation Director of EvoSwitch noted, ''The extra energy saving is in line with what we calculated beforehand. An average PUE of 1.6 is low, but the new design of the next phases enables us to achieve an even lower PUE. After completion of the next phases a PUE of 1.2 to 1.3 is a very realistic objective. According to our calculations, an energy saving will be realised in the new phase, in phase 3, of 70 to 80 percent compared to a traditional data center.''

A PUE of 1.2 to 1.3 is very low and proves that EvoSwitch is a leading data center innovator. Rosenthal: It means that you need only 20 to 30 percent extra power to manage the data centre infrastructure, whereas in traditional data centres 80 to 120 percent extra power is quite common nowadays. There are even excesses in the market of 3.0, which means that 200 percent extra energy is required.

Mr. Rosenthal added, ''The energy savings are used by EvoSwitch to finance the current and new investments in green technologies, but also to offer customers affordable energy prices. Building a green data center is more expensive than a traditional data center, but this does not affect our customers. We use the savings for further investments in green technology. Our customers also do not have to pay anything extra for our CO2 compensation, in which we invest together with the Climate Neutral Group. At EvoSwitch, companies are also better protected against high energy charges. Because of our investments in green technology and our long-term energy purchasing strategy, we can keep energy costs controllable and predictable for our customers. The environmentally friendly design of the EvoSwitch data center was the result of expert advice from TNO and the innovative work of our own dedicated design team. It enabled us to offer an energy-low concept at the opening of the data center in April 2007, among other things based on Free Cooling (using the outside temperature), Cold Corridors (separating warm and cold air flows) and UPS technology with Delta Conversion.''

EvoSwitch is now putting the final touches to a new design that will improve the PUE even further. Rosenthal: This will result in lower capital costs and operating costs and will benefit both the environment and the customers of EvoSwitch.

Mr. Rosenthal continued, ''There are many suppliers on the market who claim to operate 'green'. The only thing that counts in a data center, however, is the Power Usage Effectiveness. A data centre may buy green power, but that does not make it energy-low. A data centre may install Cold Corridors, but that does not necessarily result in the best possible energy saving. The PUE of a data centre is the key figure that shows how green a data center actually is. Recently, the Green Grid, of which we are a member, decided to use the term Data Center infrastructure Effectiveness (DCiE) as well. The lower the PUE or the higher the DCiE, the more successful the concept of a green data center. How this is achieved is a matter of making the right choices from the various available green technologies. We now aim to realise a PUE of 1.2 to 1.3 in the new data center designs.''

EvoSwitch is a carrier-neutral, green data Center (CO2-neutral). The data center is located in the Amsterdam region, has good connections and a spacious floor area of more than 9,000 m2. EvoSwitch is ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified. To customers this means that their IT infrastructure within EvoSwitch is protected according to the highest standards. The data center has a total capacity of 20 Megawatt. This power capacity enables EvoSwitch to guarantee customers that there is always enough energy available. EvoSwitch operates fully climate-neutral. In cooperation with the Climate Neutral Group the data center invests in worldwide projects to restore the CO2 balance in the atmosphere.

For more information about Climate Neutral Group, please visit: www.climateneutralgroup.com.

To learn more about The Green Fan Partner Programme, please visit: www.thegreenfan.com.

For more about EvoSwitch, please visit: www.evoswitch.com.

Singapore, Asia - (The Hosting News) - December 23, 2008 - Developer of near-continuous data protection products for Linux and Windows, R1Soft, has been chosen by Asia's Leading Hosting Provider, Usonyx, in a partnership to offer Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for Linux and Windows.

CDP technology enables Usonyx to provide round-the-clock backups virtually eliminating the risk of data loss and adding even more value to their superior hosting services. Available as part of a managed service package, R1Soft CDP backup add-on options can also be purchased separately starting at S$10 per 20GB for dedicated server customers.

Martin Chan, Managing Director of Usonyx remarked, ''After twelve months of exploring backup solutions, we are glad to have finally chosen R1Soft. Backup has become an essential part of hosting and a top priority for all customers. The R1 sales and support team provides prompt responses, meets all of our needs and the software's reliability speaks for itself.''

After the initial testing period proved successful, Usonyx decided to extend CDP to their Taiwan and Malaysia data centers and join the R1Soft Hosting Partner Program (R1HPP) as well. As an R1HPP member, Usonyx receives exclusive access to the resources needed to promote the solution and educate current customers about the benefits and security CDP brings has to offer.

David Wartell, Vice President of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies, Inc. added, ''We are pleased that CDP has already satisfied and exceeded Usonyx's expectations and we anticipate a close partnership in the future as they continue to provide CDP to their customers. The R1HPP will assist Usonyx in effectively marketing CDP with key resources as they introduce the solution. Usonyx has long been a dominant player in the Asia hosting industry so we look forward to helping them successfully deploy R1Soft CDP.''

Usonyx provides a world-class, fully automated infrastructure, multi-homed network and 24x7 technical support, all enabling customers and partners to develop and sustain a strong web and email infrastructure without costly investments in hardware, software and IT staffing. Thousands of enterprises today rely on Usonyx as the gateway to global businesses, customers and networks.

Founded in 2003, R1Soft is a provider of disk-based backup solutions. The company's customer list includes some of the world's largest hosting providers. R1soft products provide Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for over 85,000 mission-critical Linux and Windows servers worldwide. In November, 2007 R1Soft was acquired by BBS Technologies, Inc.

To learn more about Usonyx, please visit: www.Usonyx.net.

For more about R1Soft and Continuous Data Protection, please visit: www.r1soft.com.

Santa Clara, California - (The Hosting News) - December 23, 2008 - Web operations services provider, OpSource, will support the Taleo provider of on-demand talent management solutions, to deliver its Business Edition Platform.

Jason Blessing, General Manager and Group Vice President, Taleo Business Edition, explained, ''We looked at several different web delivery providers for Taleo Business Edition and chose OpSource because they meet our high standards for excellence; they know our business and they are experts in SaaS delivery. As an OpSource On-Demand customer, we receive access to their wide range of services and expertise without having to pay for additional in-house resources and employees. Additionally, OpSource is able to scale with us and their success-based pricing model gives us real value from a cost perspective.''

Taleo Business Edition is the company's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering consisting of recruiting and performance management solutions for small and medium businesses (SMBs). When Taleo decided to outsource SaaS delivery for its SMB client base they needed a scalable solution they could depend on to meet performance requirements and eliminate the large upfront costs of a data center. Taleo selected OpSource On-Demand because of its proven reputation as a robust, cost effective and secure solution.

Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource, added, ''Taleo guarantees the integrity of customers' data and processes and OpSource On-Demand offers the security and reliability they need to fulfill that promise. Additionally, our disaster recovery solution provides Taleo peace of mind knowing there is a plan in place to keep applications running even in 'worst case' scenarios. We're honored to have earned Taleo's trust as their web operations partner for Taleo Business Edition.''

A comprehensive web operations solution, OpSource On-Demand is designed to enable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Web companies to quickly and securely deliver their applications and services over the web to consumers and businesses alike. Going far beyond full-featured managed hosting, it includes the application management, compliance and business services that are necessary for on-demand business success.

OpSource On-Demand includes: Technical Operations Best-in-class, scalable software, hardware and network infrastructure World-class data center facilities Redundant carrier class load balancing architecture In-depth 24x7 monitoring, security, and management procedures backed by SAS-70 Type II audits Built-in high availability solutions from simple clustering to wide-area disaster recovery Application Operations Data management Performance management, including multipoint user-experience monitoring Application roll out and change management Application optimization Compliant infrastructure, processes and procedures including: SAS 70 Type II audited, HIPAA and PCI DSS compliance and salesforce.com and WebEx certifications Business Operations OpSource Billing CLM - An end-to-end subscription management, metering and payment stand-alone solution, or as part of OpSource On-Demand OpSource Connect - A web services infrastructure and integration toolset, for application integration in the 'Cloud' and behind the corporate fire-wall OpSource End-User Support - 24x7 customer branded end-user support OpSource Analytics - A real-time application and customer usage information, and health of business analysis and reporting tool.

OpSource delivers Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and web applications for on-demand companies, with hundreds of applications, millions of users and billions of transactions supported daily. OpSource On-Demand, the leading web operations solution, is defining how web-based software is delivered. By choosing OpSource as their web application delivery partner, companies are freed from investing in and managing the complex and costly infrastructure and services necessary to deliver applications over the web. They can instead focus their resources on developing, marketing and selling their applications and services.

Further, by using OpSource Connect companies can leverage web services such as OpSource Billing CLM, OpSource Analytics and OpSource End-User Support and integrate their applications with other SaaS applications over the Internet as well as with enterprise applications behind the corporate firewall. OpSource On-Demand is suitable for companies at any stage of growth, with any type of on-demand application.Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, OpSource has Web application delivery centers in Virginia, London and Bangalore.

For more information about OpSource, please visit: www.opsource.net.

Boeblingen, Germany - (The Hosting News) - December 23, 2008 - Hosted Infrastructure Services Firm, SAG GmbH, has signed a five-year technology services agreement with HP, to facilitate the energy-related services firm reduce costs and scale technology services based on business needs.

Andreas Klenz, Chief Information Officer, SAG GmbH remarked, ''HP's services will enable SAG GmbH to reduce costs and increase flexibility. This also means we can maintain our focus on the core business.''

The agreement includes the management of: Centralized operation of SAP, email, active directory, archiving, application and file servers, web and terminal servers Decentralized operation of the infrastructure in SAG GmbH's facilities throughout Germany, including databases, application and file servers, imaging and printing environment, and local area networks End-user workplace environment, including desktop management, service desk and on-site services Many of the services will be provided as HP Utility Sourcing Services (HP USS), which are part of the Adaptive Infrastructure as a Service offering. HP USS are standardized service modules for the management of technology infrastructure, applications and end-user environment. SAG GmbH will scale technology capacity and cost to meet business situations. HP USS also can be customized to the specific requirements of SAG GmbH.

SAG GmbH will use the following modules of the HP USS portfolio, delivered from virtualized systems in redundant HP data centers in Germany: Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP hosting), Messaging, Computing, Data Management, Database, and End-User Workplace Services. For each of these services there is a specific usage-dependent billing model in place. SAG GmbH can scale volumes and costs up and down within short timeframes.

"To enable SAG to adapt more quickly to changing business requirements, HP will deliver to them comprehensive, secure and cost-effective operation services billed according to usage," said Hans-Ulrich Holdenried, chairman of the Management Board, HP Germany.

Since its founding 90 years ago, SAG has been significantly involved in the construction and extension of electrical transmission and distribution networks in Germany and internationally. Today SAG is one of the leading manufacturer-independent service and system suppliers for electricity, gas, water and telecommunication networks as well as for systems all about the generation, provision and application of energy and media. SAG is present throughout Germany with over 80 locations. About 7,900 employees produce yearly revenue of around one billion Euros. Apart from Germany, the core market is Europe.

HP, the world's largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure.

To learn more, please visit: www.sag.de/sag_gruppe/wEnglish/index.php.

Jersey City , New Jersey - (The Hosting News) - December 22, 2008 - Managed hosting and security services company, DataPipe, recently sponsored a WIRED Magazine event, featuring Editor-in-Chief, Chris Anderson, in New York City.

Mr. Anderson spoke about the emerging business trend toward FREE, the subject of his second book set to be released in 2009. The economics of FREE are responsible for generating billions of dollars in revenue, and it has quickly become the business model of an increasing number of industries.

Robb Allen, CEO of DataPipe noted, ''Chris Anderson's insights provide exceptional thought leadership on the global marketplace. His analysis is always on-target and often several steps ahead of conventional wisdom.''

DataPipe and WIRED have a decade long partnership which has gone beyond advertising to include past sponsorships of NextFest and presentations at the 92nd Street Y. The longevity of this relationship is proof of DataPipe and WIRED's commitment to technology and the resulting impact on business.

Howard Mittman, Associate Publisher at WIRED commented, ''The WIRED Store is the physical embodiment of the many ways that WIRED celebrates innovation inside our magazine's pages. As we explore innovation and the changes our world is experiencing, it becomes more important than ever to seek out best in class companies, such as DataPipe, whose vision for the future is in line with the predictive, prescient qualities of the WIRED brand. We are proud of our long-term partnership with DataPipe and are very excited that they were alongside us as the WIRED Store provided a stage for Chris Anderson to speak about the release of his latest book, FREE.''

With Anderson at the helm, WIRED has won five National Magazine Awards, and in 2007 he was named to Time Magazine's 'Time 100,' an annual list of people transforming our world. The 2008 WIRED Store is open November 21st - December 26th. Located at 15 West 18th Street in Manhattan's Flatiron District, the fourth annual WIRED Store displays today's leading technology products.

During the summer, DataPipe began collaborating to provide startup companies with an opportunity for competitively priced, high-performance managed hosting services, with Sun Microsystems.

Sun's Startup EssentialsSM program, offers cost effective services to startup companies with a platform of products designed to integrate with its hosting and managed services. Members with web hosting infrastructure and services that are housed in its data center facilities and backed by quality support, according to the company, will experience value and reliability, through a range of products, including the Sun servers, Solaris 10 operating system, and storage.

The new program was developed for existing software companies, with hardware, software, managed hosting services, security, reporting and patching, provided at no cost for up to 90 days, with an ISV Sandbox agreement. Also included, is a 99.5% Service Level Agreement on the testing and development infrastructure.

The Sun Startup Essentials program is designed to help eligible U.S. based startup companies get to market faster while conserving cash. The program offers its members a range of discounted Sun products and services, including its award-winning Sun Fire x64 servers and Sun Fire servers with CoolThreads technology, and Sun's select StorageTek line of products, including modular disk arrays, NAS and tape storage products.

DataPipe has been in the managed services business since 1998, providing application management, hosting, professional services, and security services for mid to large-sized organizations in a range of vertical industries. The company has over 1500 customers in six data centers and eight office locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China, headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.

To learn more about Sun's web hosting program, please visit: www.sun.com/startupessentials.

To learn more, please visit: www.datapipe.com.

Dallas, Texas - (The Hosting News) - December 22, 2008 - On-demand hosting services and virtual data center provider for the small to medium enterprise (SME), SoftLayer Technologies, has completed a SAS 70 review.

Including the assessment of all processes and systems necessary to complete an accompanying Type II report, the audit and evaluation were part of its ongoing commitment to provide customers with industry-best standards and practices. A SAS 70 Type II review is an in-depth survey of a service organization's control objectives and activities, with an evaluation of the organizations' effectiveness in meeting those control objectives.

Steve Kinman, Customer Service Manager at SoftLayer noted, ''We are very excited to have completed this process. It gives us an objective standard for assuring all of our customers, of all sizes, that we provide reliable, tested, and secure hosting services based upon industry-recognized standards.''

It is an important step for any service organization supporting outsourced, mission-critical, and information technology services. The survey includes a full assessment of: Oversight by executive management Operations and customer service Development and information technology organization Human resources policies and procedures Risk assessment monitoring SAS 70 data centers must maintain prescribed levels of data security and redundancy, as well as personnel controls. The data center's staff cannot access servers or data without a specific procedure. All systems access and activity must be logged, and all physical access is highly controlled.

SoftLayer's review was conducted by an independent auditing agency and included extensive testing performed over a six-month period. It involved all existing SoftLayer data center facilities in Dallas, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer provides next-generation web hosting and on-demand datacenter services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX and Seattle, WA and Washington DC. Utilizing proprietary management tools coupled with the industry's first network-within-a-network topology, the company delivers unprecedented power and control to securely manage IT environments while providing unparalleled scalability.

For more about SoftLayer, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

New York, New York - (The Hosting News) - December 22, 2008 - Wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation and network integrator, hosting and web services firm, NTT America, Inc. (NTTA), has released new customer care service choices, among other products and services.

As part of its Enterprise Hosting Release 08.4, the new solutions include the availability of Windows Server 2008; new software patch management service; new security hardware and managed security service options. The Release 08.4 continues the quarterly discipline of enhancing the Enterprise Hosting portfolio of products and services to better meet the needs of customers and target markets.

NTT America now supports Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Server 2008, as a standard service option. Customers will be able to leverage several benefits with this newest OS release, such as improved and hardened security to control user's rights on the servers; improved clustering and failover support; substantially faster file transfers; and enhancements for IIS7 to provide faster authentication and more powerful content compression.

Enterprise Hosting customers can now take advantage of NTT America's automated Windows patch management service as an option for both Windows Server 2003 and 2008. NTT America engineers will fully test and validate all such software patches released by Microsoft. Customers have the flexibility to schedule the deployment of these patches to their production environment based on their own business priorities.

Upgrades to managed security services include a refreshed set of Proventia Multi-Function Security hardware options to meet the cost/performance requirements of a wider range of customers at different phases of growth. Managed security services have also been modified to provide target customers with greater price flexibility for support and policy changes.

Vini Handler, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, Enterprise Hosting noted, ''We are pleased to offer these enhancements to our comprehensive portfolio of Managed Hosting services. These new products and services enable customers to take advantage of the latest technology in server operating systems, security and server management. And with our expanded Enterprise Customer Care options, companies can now select a customer care solution matched to their own specific needs.''

NTT America has now expanded its Enterprise Customer Care to support service flexibility and choices. Standard service, delivered to all customers, continues to provide around the clock technical support; direct access to certified engineers; provisioning and billing support; and access to billing history and real-time performance data via the customer portal.

Three new service levels are available to augment standard customer service, and include options such as: dedicated support for technical issue resolution and escalations; on-going monthly or quarterly reporting and review; project management; and professional services support. With either the standard service or one of the new service levels, customers can be assured that their outsourced IT infrastructure is getting the precise level of attention, care and support they require.

Enterprise Hosting is a business unit of NTT America and offers a comprehensive set of enterprise grade hosting services. These services, based on an Infrastructure as a Service model, are designed to accommodate rapid deployment and implementation of small to very large and global IT operations. For information on the complete portfolio offered by Enterprise Hosting, visit us at www.eh.nttamerica.com.

Earlier this month, NTT America debuted the launch of a new enterprise and business web site. The site provides comprehensive information on the company's portfolio of hosting services that enable businesses to balance their internal IT resources and assets with outsourced IT infrastructure and data center services. Offered under an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) arrangement, the company provides cost-effective and scalable solutions for medium, large and very large companies who are seeking a competitive and financial edge in managing their core businesses.

NTT America is North America's natural gateway to the Asia-Pacific region, with strong capabilities in the U.S. market. NTT America is the U.S. subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation, the global data and IP services arm of the Fortune Global 500 telecom leader: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT). NTT America provides world-class Enterprise Hosting, managed network, and IP networking services for enterprise customers and service providers worldwide. For additional information on NTT America, visit us on the Web at www.nttamerica.com.

NTT Com delivers high-quality voice, data and IP services to customers around the world. The company is renowned for its diverse information and communication services, expertise in managed networks, hosting and IP networking services, and industry leadership in IPv6 transit technology. The company's extensive global infrastructure includes Arcstar private networks and a Tier 1 IP backbone (connected with major ISPs worldwide), both reaching more than 150 countries, as well as secure data centers in Asia, North America and Europe. NTT Com is the wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, one of the world's largest telecoms with listings on the Tokyo, London and New York stock exchanges.

To learn more about the new site, please visit: www.eh.nttamerica.com.

For additional information on NTT America, please visit: www.nttamerica.com.

To learn more about NTT Com, please visit: www.ntt.com.

Charlotte, North Carolina - (The Hosting News) - December 22, 2008 - Managed services and data center provider, Hosted Solutions, has entered into a deal with child seat manufacturer, Britax Child Safety Inc.

Charity Stevens, eMarketing Manager at Britax commented, ''We maintain an international presence in the child seat industry via the Internet and that requires uninterrupted service of our many web properties at all times. We selected Hosted Solutions because they were more than capable of ensuring the availability and security around the clock.''

For over 30 years, Britax, based in Europe, has been a global pioneer in developing car seats that enhance child safety. It understands that determining which child seat a family chooses is a decision not taken lightly, and the Internet is the number one destination for a family researching this decision. Britax has a large web presence; it needed to select a hosting provider with the ability to globally harmonize the company's sites spanning North America, Europe and Australia.

Josh Wolff, Regional Sales Manager for Hosted Solutions in Charlotte, N.C. added, ''We are honored that a world-renowned company like Britax has decided to put their trust in Hosted Solutions. We are excited to add yet another blue chip company to our client roster.''

Hosted Solutions was officially contracted to handle dedicated services, bandwidth, firewall, servers, licenses, backups and full management for all Britax web properties.

Hosted Solutions has two data centers in the Triangle area, two in Charlotte, NC and one in Boston, MA. Its full suite of services includes colocation, fully-managed servers, dedicated servers, business continuity services, managed storage, enterprise backup, managed firewall, intrusion and vulnerability detection, load balancing, high availability clustering and comprehensive 24/7 monitoring and management of e-commerce infrastructures.

For more information on Hosted Solutions, visit www.hostedsolutions.com.

Britax Child Safety Inc. is a leading child seat manufacturer. For more than three decades, it has been a pioneer in developing car seats that enhance safety. Britax's full line of car seats offers side impact protection, and its True Side Impact Protection family of products features the highest level of side impact protection available on the market.

Britax is the best-selling child seat in Europe and has become one of the most-trusted brands in North America by parents and caregivers since entering the market in 1996. Britax assembles its car seats in its Charlotte, N.C. factory, with many of the components coming from vendors within a 100-mile radius of Charlotte.

Hosted Solutions' Data Center and Managed Hosting solutions were developed to maintain and protect customers' mission-critical, back-office IT systems and applications, enabling them to reduce operating costs, lower the risk of downtime, focus on core competencies, and achieve their top business objectives. The company operates four SAS 70 Type II audited Data Centers in Boston MA, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC, and Cary NC providing best-of-breed data center operations with hardened physical infrastructure, the highest level of security, and a complete managed services portfolio.

For more information about Britax, please visit: www.britaxusa.com.

To learn more about Hosted Solutions, please visit: www.hostedsolutions.com.