IBM Hosting Provider, Expands Cloud Computing Data Center Mandate (Try Hosted Kerio Email)

IBM Hosting Provider, Expands Cloud Computing Data Center Mandate

Armonk, New York - (The Hosting News) - August 11, 2008 - Hosted application solutions provider, IBM, plans to expand its cloud computing capabilities, through an investment of nearly $400m, with the opening of data centers in the US and Japan.

Willy Chiu, Vice President, IBM High Performance On Demand Solutions remarked, ”Cloud computing is fundamentally about re-engineering the world’s computing infrastructure, to enable game-changing — even life-changing — applications. To IBM, cloud computing is much more than the normal evolution of a data center.”

The centers are part of IBM’s Project Big Green initiative aimed at increasing energy efficiency in the data center. IBM plans to employ 200 full-time researchers and invest more than $100m in cloud computing over the next three years. In March, it launched its first European cloud computing center in Dublin, Ireland, and in June it established centers in Beijing, China and Johannesburg, South Africa.

Bob Greenberg, General Manager of IT optimization at IBM noted, ”The new data center in North Carolina is part of IBM’s commitment to construct the world’s most advanced data centers. This is the latest example of IBM’s deep history of innovation in North Carolina. When we open for business in late 2009, the IBM data center in Research Triangle Park will be a strategic location for our outsourcing business for years to come.”

Cloud computing lets organizations remotely access a vast network of computers that can be tapped on-demand. In the U.S., IBM will spend $360 million to build a state-of-the-art data center at its facility in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The company will renovate a building on its campus, aiming to reuse 95 percent of the original building’s shell and recycle 90 percent of the materials from the original building.

The new cloud computing center in Tokyo will provide large companies, universities and government agencies immediate access to experts who can help them deploy cloud computing environments. Both new centers will link to seven other IBM cloud centers around the world.

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.

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

Host the Best, Web Hosting Company, Introduces Reseller Scripts Program

Bronx, New York - (The Hosting News) - August 12, 2008 - Web hosting solutions company, Host the Best, has debuted the launch of its HTB Reseller Scripts Program, in order to combine quality and productivity, in Scripts that have a high resale value.

Designed for web hosts and others looking to expand their catalogue, the HTB Reseller Scripts Program introduces a range of scripts that can be offered either as a new, or existing service.

Andy Candelario, Director of Business Development at Host the Best explained, ”One of the priorities of our reseller scripts development team is to create scripts that not only work well, but also raise the bar of competition in the industry. With the introduction of Reseller Scripts Program, some of the best selling scripts will now be available for one and all to profit from.”

Developed for resale primarily, these scripts offer a cheaper alternative to in-house development. The list of available scripts in the program grows at a steady pace and custom scripts are developed on order. Furthermore, resellers get weekly discounts and priority support tickets among other benefits.

Since 1999, Host The Best offers innovative and reliable Shared Web Hosting services combined with fast, competent and friendly technical support. The company’s goal is to help increase online business and provide the infrastructure, which is essential to keep it running smoothly.

To learn more about Host The Best’s Reseller program, please visit: www.htbsoftware.com/reseller.php.

For more information about Host The Best, please visit: www.hostthebest.com.

Rackspace Managed Hosting, to Sponsor Inaugural Web Experience Forum 2008

Boston, Massachusetts - (Website Hosting Directory) - August 11, 2008 - Web hosting company, Rackspace Managed Hosting, will sponsor The Web Experience Forum event, to be launched by web management services, Gomez, Inc.

William Agush, Vice President, Marketing, Gomez, Inc. noted, ”Until now, there hasn’t been a single industry event that comprehensively addresses all facets of the web experience lifecycle. By underwriting the first Web Experience Forum, Gomez’s goal is to help create a venue where executives and experts across the entire web experience management spectrum can meet and learn from one another in a vendor-neutral environment.”

The Web Experience Forum is a two-and-a-half-day conference that will take place Oct. 14-16, 2008 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Towers in Boston, Mass. The first-of-its-kind event synthesizes all aspects of the web experience - business, sociological and technical - with an eye on perhaps the biggest factor affecting experience: web application performance.

Attendees, including both business and information technology (IT) executives, will explore the challenges, processes and technologies that shape the web experience, gaining new understanding and perspective from some of the best thinkers and practitioners of the web experience. Lou Carbone, author of the best-selling ”Clued In, How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again,” is a featured speaker at the event. Mr. Carbone is founder and CEO of the Experience Engineering research firm and has been a leader in the experience management revolution for over two decades.

Mr. Carbone will be joined by industry experts from Crutchfield, New York Life Insurance, Trend Micro, Wachovia and other companies, to explore the many perspectives of the web experience including: Best practices - lessons from the web experience frontier The technology ecosystem of the web experience The effects of globalization and communities on the web experience The economic imperatives of a good web experience How to build a web experience centric culture When buyers react to the web experience - how to measure, analyze and act Industry professionals are invited to propose first-rate presentations on the newest and best practices in all aspects of web experience management.
Rackspace Hosting, Clickability, Inc. and Genuine Interactive are sponsors of the inaugural event.

Rackspace Hosting delivers hosted IT systems and computing to businesses of all sizes, providing hosting specialization and expertise, backed by the company’s award-winning Fanatical Support. Customers can receive benefits such as higher quality, lower cost and better performance from Rackspace’s vast knowledge of industry best-practices. Because Rackspace removes the burden of IT systems maintenance and management, customers can focus on key areas that differentiate their business. Rackspace’s portfolio of hosted services includes managed hosting (www.rackspace.com), email hosting (www.mailtrust.com) and cloud hosting (www.mosso.com). Rackspace is recognized as one of FORTUNE Magazine’s 100 Best companies to work for, ranking number 32 on the 2008 list. For more information about Rackspace Managed Hosting, please visit: www.rackspace.com.

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

The Planet Web Hosting Provider, to Participate in 2008 Affiliate Summit East

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - August 8, 2008 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, will participate at the 2008 Affiliate Summit East, to be held August 10-12 at the Boston Seaport Hotel.

The company will showcase its partner program at Table 70 during the Affiliate Meet Market. The Planet affiliate program provides a 100 percent commission to registered affiliates who refer new customers to the company. The one-time commission, based on the referred customer’s total monthly recurring order value, is paid to affiliates 45 days after a new order is placed. There is no cap on the size of the order or the resulting commission paid.

James P. Treuting, Vice President of sales and operations at The Planet noted, ”At the request of our customers, we introduced our affiliate program seven months ago. We’ve seen outstanding success so far, which has led to enhancements including increases in affiliate commissions and a shortened payout-waiting period. At the conference, we expect to forge new partnerships, and we invite prospects to stop by our table to learn how they can make money simply by referring customers to The Planet.”

The Affiliate Summit, held several times a year, offers an educational showcase for affiliates, vendors and merchants. The conference agenda includes sessions on affiliate marketing strategies, trends and best practices.

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 a leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting over 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 6.7 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by enhanced facilities and network connectivity.

To learn more, please visit: www.theplanet.com/news/events.

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

Dedicated Server Security Enhanced, by Cirrus Tech Hosting

Markham, Canada - (The Hosting News) - August 7, 2008 - Web hosting provider, Cirrus Tech, has debuted an all-in-one dedicated hardware solution for clients desiring additional security, stability and features, for dedicated servers.

The new hardware developed by HotBrick Corporation features load balancing, firewall, and VPN capabilities. Ali Mirdamadi, Product Director at Cirrus Tech, noted, ”Each of our clients has very specific requirements and having to set-up a separate device to accommodate each of their needs is very inefficient. With an all-in-one solution, our clients can enjoy additional features at relatively the same cost as a single application.”

Cirrus Tech currently offers either a software firewall that clients can configure on their server or an external firewall that is managed by Cirrus as part of their dedicated server hosting plans. With the all-in-one device from HotBrick, clients have full network firewall management capabilities.

The VPN feature allows clients to establish up to 10 simultaneous VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnels with various encryption methods easily. For clients that want greater stability and redundancy, this hardware will be able to provide load balancing between 2 or more servers.
This all-in-one solution can be purchased as an add-on to any of Cirrus Tech’s dedicated server hosting plans.

In an effort to stay ahead of the curve, Cirrus Tech is continuously seeking out innovative new products and services to compliment their existing product and service offerings. Look for new exciting product announcements from Cirrus in the near future.

Cirrus Tech Ltd. has been actively promoting its services to the hosting industry since 1999. The company has focused on 24/7 tech support, value added services and a cooperative attitude towards all its clients. Cirrus is now one of Canada’s largest Web Hosting companies and is a leading provider of comprehensive Internet services. Cirrus provides locally based sales and engineering support for its Internet services in Toronto, Canada, and offers Web hosting services to customers in many countries.

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

Web Hosting and Management Services Group, TriZetto, Closes Apax Partners Merger

Newport Beach, California - (The Hosting News) - August 11, 2008 - Enterprise and component software, hosting and business process outsourcing services firm, The TriZetto Group Inc., and Apax Partners, have closed its merger deal.

The merger agreement was first announced on April 11, 2008. Funds advised by Apax Partners, together with minority investors BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and The Regence Group, acquired all of TriZetto’s common stock for $22 cash per share. Payment instructions will be mailed or delivered electronically to stockholders and convertible note holders.

Jeff Margolis, Chairman and CEO of the TriZetto Group remarked, ”I am proud of the outstanding work by many people at TriZetto and at Apax who completed this transaction so quickly while minimizing distractions to our customers. TriZetto remains singularly focused on developing high-return software and services for payers and their constituents in the healthcare supply chain. We look forward to more strongly partnering with our customers, while leveraging Apax’s resources and international reach to further accelerate our solutions development and growth.”

Apax Partners is a private equity investment groups. It operates across the United States, Europe and Asia and has more than 30 years of investing experience. Funds under the advice of Apax Partners total $40 billion around the world. These Funds provide long-term equity financing to build and strengthen world-class companies. Apax Partners Funds invest in companies across its global sectors of Tech and Telecom, Retail and Consumer, Media, Healthcare and Financial and Business Services. Significant recent investments by funds advised by the Apax Partners Healthcare and Tech and Telecom teams include: General Healthcare Group, Capio, Apollo Hospitals, Qualitest Pharmaceuticals, Spectrum Laboratories, Weather Investments, SMART Technologies and TDC.

Common stock holders with questions may contact Computershare Trust Company, N.A. at 800-962-4284 or 303-262-0600. Convertible note holders with questions may contact Wells Fargo Bank at 213-614-2588.

Buddy Gumina, partner and head of U.S. healthcare at Apax Partners who joins a new Board of Directors at TriZetto noted ”Apax shares Jeff’s vision for Integrated Healthcare Management, which holds so much promise to improve our healthcare system, and we are excited to add TriZetto to our portfolio of industry leading companies.”

Mr. Margolis added, ”It is clear from the broad discussion on Capitol Hill that healthcare reform in coming years will include significant investments in information technology. TriZetto and its 350 payer customers are well positioned to help enable and accelerate many of these transformative technology solutions that can optimize benefits and care for healthcare consumers.”

With its technology touching nearly half of the U.S. insured population, TriZetto is positioned to drive the convergence of health benefit administration, care management and constituent engagement. The company provides premier information technology solutions that enable payers and other constituents in the healthcare supply chain to improve the coordination of benefits and care for healthcare consumers. Healthcare payers include national and regional health insurance plans, and benefits administrators that provide transaction services to self-insured employer groups. The company’s payer-focused information technology offerings include enterprise and component software, hosting and business process outsourcing services, and consulting.

For more information about Apax Partners, please visit: www.apax.com.

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

Web Hosted Open Source Software Developer, Debuts Data Integration Solution

Colorado Springs, Colorado - (The Hosting News) - August 8, 2008 - Hosted open source data integration solution for creating composite data services, XAware, Inc., has released its new XAware 5.1 application upgrade.

Kirstan Vandersluis, Co-founder and Chief Scientist of XAware noted, ”The exceptional download rate and enthusiastic community involvement in the early months of the XAware project have been very gratifying. Community participation is essential to building robust open source software and we constantly receive invaluable insight from our users. Developers from around the world have been instrumental in helping to optimize XAware through feature requests, identifying bugs and providing feedback that will be important for the future direction of the product.”

The new application is designed for creating and managing composite data services for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. The product enhancements included in this release have been greatly influenced by the rapidly growing XAware community, which has downloaded more than 150,000 copies of the solution in the five months since its general release. XAware has also been listed as one of the top 100 projects on Sourceforge.net, the world’s largest Open Source software development web site, hosting more than 100,000 projects and with over 1,000,000 registered users.

The XAware development team worked closely with its user community to add new functionality and improved product usability. Upgrades include enhanced text processing, better support for REST operation creation and testing, enhanced XML Schema management and validation, improved MySQL and DB2 stored procedure support and a new JMX BizComponent for greater monitoring control. These and other improvements in XAware 5.1 have been designed to speed the development and delivery of composite data services.

XAware’s data integration software makes it easy to access and integrate data to and from any source. XAware enhances the productivity of other development tools and frameworks by allowing users to build composite data services. These services provide real-time access to information and the ability to abstract, transform, aggregate and mashup data.

An additional sign of growth of the XAware project is the number of add-on projects originating from the XAware community. A recent example is a connector that enables the development of SAP-compatible components and applications in Java. This high-performance add-on will assist users in building both desktop and server applications.

XAware 5.1 is available for free use under the GPLv2 license and additionally via a commercial license. Services and support subscriptions are also available for purchase from XAware, Inc.

XAware is the first company to provide a comprehensive open source data integration solution for creating composite data services. XAware provides users with the ability to rapidly access and integrate data with applications and business processes. Furthermore, XAware makes it possible to transform data, regardless of the source, into reusable services for real-time integration in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Rich Internet Applications (RIA), and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. XAware features an Eclipse-based development environment and runtime engine based on the Spring framework that can be implemented to take advantage of almost any IT infrastructure.

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

Web Hosting Application, Ensim Unify, Garners Windows IT Pro Magazine Award

Santa Clara, California - (The Hosting News) - August 11, 2008 - Collaborative infrastructure and web hosting application, Ensim Corporation’s Unify Enterprise Edition, has received a bronze medal, by Penton Media’s Windows IT Pro magazine’s Editor’s Choice Awards.

Ensim received the award in the messaging category. Jeff Lewis, group publisher noted, ”The 2008 Editor’s Best Awards utilize our editors’ product knowledge and subject matter expertise to identify exceptional products that benefit the Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazine reader communities. Our editors selected winners based on the product’s strategic importance to the market, its competitive advantages and its value to the customer. Our editors are tough, in-the-trenches critics. They demand solid value and performance from the products they select. Editor’s Best Award winners can feel proud that the products and services they developed have earned the respect and recognition of the Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazine editorial staff.”

Available as snap-in tools or a full suite, Ensim Unify Enterprise Edition allows organizations to decrease operating costs, improve workforce effectiveness, and meet security and compliance goals. Unify Enterprise Edition redefines user provisioning and access control software for Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange and mobility applications such as BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Windows Mobile. It provides change management, automated provisioning, mobile and client device configuration, delegated administration, and resource optimization, all via an easy to use role-based Web portal.

Francois Depayras, Vice President of marketing and alliances at Ensim added, ”Receiving this honor from Windows IT Pro validates the quality of our product. We hope that when selecting user provisioning software, enterprises keep in mind that Ensim’s products are distinguished for their superior quality and performance.”

Penton Media’s Windows IT Pro, the largest independent Windows IT community in the world, has Windows IT Pro as its flagship print publication. Windows IT Pro also includes SQL Server Magazine and Office SharePoint Pro. The Windows IT Pro network has 2.5 million unique visitors to its Web sites each month, and more than one million subscribers who opt-in to one or more email newsletters. Windows IT Pro is the world’s leading producer of custom road shows, paid conferences and paid workshops for Windows and SQL Server IT and developer professionals.

Penton Media, Inc. is the largest independent business-to-business media company in the U.S., serving more than six million business professionals every month. The company’s market-leading brands are focused on 30 industries and include 113 trade magazines, 145 Web sites, 150 industry trade shows and conferences, and more than 500 information data products. Headquartered in New York City, the privately held company is owned by MidOcean Partners and U.S. Equity Partners II, an investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein and Co., LP, and its co-investors.

Founded in 1998, Ensim Corporation is the leading provider of user provisioning and access control software. Ensim products are used by service providers and enterprises worldwide to accelerate and enable deployment of integrated solutions, simplify and automate secure management of complex environments, and increase user and IT productivity. Ensim is Microsoft Gold Certified, and maintains strategic partnerships with many leading infrastructure vendors including Research In Motion (BlackBerry), Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, Siemens and BroadSoft.

To learn more about Penton Media, Inc., please visit: www.penton.com.

For more information about Ensim, please visit: www.ensim.com.