Menu of Services Keeps Webhosts Smiling — continued

[February 25, 2005]

Specials of the day
Herndon, Va.-based SWsoft, which supplies services and software for webhosts, offers a variety of solutions that can help webhosts set themselves apart from the pack.

Their recently launched HostAdvantage offers a newly revamped search engine, e-mail marketing, domain registration, and other value added services to its hosting customers.

Additionally, they have partnered with many other companies to offer additional services to webhosts including Overture, Submitnet, IntelliContact, Constant Contact, and Global Name Registry.

For example, IntelliContact provides safe, whitelisted (with AOL and Yahoo) e-mail marketing, a segment of the market that continues to grow. In 1999, revenue from e-mail marketing was estimated at $164 million. Today, e-mail marketing is a $5 billion industry.

SWsoft's HSPcomplete offers a range of products which allows the smaller webhost to manage hardware, operating systems, applications, backups, customers, resellers, e-commerce storefronts and customer payments from a single system.

The company's PEM Data Center Hosting Automation offering is a multi-tier platform scalable to millions of customer accounts, which provides more sophisticated capabilities like clustering, load balancing, and fail-over.

"We have done all the hard work of research and development, so with our products the webhost gets a much quicker time to market for new services along with features that allow them to serve their customers better,"since said Kurt Daniel, director of marketing for SWsoft. "We take the work out of offering additional services. It's really kind of crazy to try to build all this stuff yourself."

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GoDaddy.com offers a range of services including Brand Spider, which lets you track information and comments about your brand on the Internet, 'phishing' fraud protection, spam filtering, virus protection for e-mail accounts, website building tools, shopping carts, legal e-mail marketing, and domain name services.

Their Fax Thru e-mail service allows customers to send and receive faxes via any e-mail client.Inbound faxes are converted to a PDF file and routed to an e-mail address while outbound faxes are sent from the customer's e-mail address to a designated fax number.

"Additionally, we have found that customers seek pre built applications that add immediate value and capabilities to their site," said Bob Parsons, president and founder of GoDaddy.com. "We currently offer value applications which include blogging, chat, document management, forums, etc. These applications allow the user to immediately enjoy a dynamic website presence without spending too much time developing it."

Just desserts
All of these services, and many others, can be summarized in two words: customer service. Yablonowitz and other webhosts agree that customer service, whether it is in the form of new products or tech support, is the most important part of this, or any, business. The irony is that it is still the most overlooked part of the webhosting business.

"In most businesses, customer support is normal but in the technology industry, since it is run mainly by the 'techies,' this is often the first thing that is forgotten," commented Yablonowitz. "You really have to help your customers and go above and beyond what they expect. For example, we hired MSCEs for our help desk so when a customer calls we have the answers right then and there. This is what customers have come to expect and what keeps them with us and why 60 percent of our customers are from referrals."

GoDaddy's Parsons says simply, "Webhosts that do not provide the support that customers demand and expect will not be successful in this industry."

Both Yablonowitz and Parsons also agree that another big shakeout is coming for the webhosting industry and only those who can stand up to the competition will be left standing.

Ultimately, said Yablonowitz, webhosting will become a commodity like the phone company and only a few companies will survive. "The business is already moving in that direction. The only reason it is not moving faster in that direction is that a lot of people who are hosting are the techno people and still running things like they did years ago."

Parson believes that over the next 10 to 20 years, just about everyone will have an Internet presence in one way or another. "The pervasiveness of domain names, e-mail, and hosting will be similar to technologies like the telephone and television."

For some, the day when an Internet presence is essential to success is already here. "We would not even be in business if it weren't for the Internet," said Simpson. "Our web presence, like our phones, computers, and office furniture, is something that we simply cannot do without."

—End

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