- UK2′s VPS.NET doubles infrastructure location footprint globally
- GoGrid opens data centre in Amsterdam (update)
- Claranet cloud brings on customers, generating channel interest
The latter half of last week saw another private company – Attenda in the UK – make at least some comments about its 2011 results. It disclosed positive growth on an y/y and 5-year CAGR basis. Our sense is that Attenda has moved along quite steadily in managed hosting and with new ownership and some changes in management, is gearing up to take that proverbial next step. We expect to hear more from them in the coming months.
Another trend we have seen emerging of late is the increased willingness of hosters to try and bridge the gap between websites and social media platforms like Facebook. There is little question that Facebook and Twitter now play a significant role in any organization’s web presence. The negative impact, however, is generally limited to the consumer market. When it comes to business and organizations, Facebook and Twitter are not going to be replacements for web presence. They are going to be complementary to websites (and yes, increasingly important ones) and it is the hoster’s job to step in and provide both technology and services to help organizations manage these multiple web presences. This will be absolutely crucial for any hoster fighting to host web presence and e-commerce storefronts. It is about how to bring Facebook into your customer’s online world and most importantly, how to centre it around personalized/customized proprietary web presence. Don’t get caught up in how Facebook can be a competitor or you might miss how you can make social media an ally. The sector is not standing still as UK2 showed us this past week. We also covered some of Twitter’s recent developments. But Facebook’s impending IPO was the week’s biggest development in social media. We haven’t yet had a chance to flip through the S-1 filing but will shortly and see if we can get some insight into how Facebook might further impact hosting.
One final note: we’ll be at the Parallels Summit in Orlando next week so please drop us a line if you would like to meet. You can direct message us on Twitter or send an email to me directly.
