Trellix makes a compelling argument for getting into the Web publishing game as a way to reduce churn and lure new SMB clients your way. Learn what your ISP operation needs to integrate this value added proposition into your service mix.

by ISP-Planet Staff [July 6, 2001]

Building online communities can lure new dialup subscribers your way and help you keep the ones you already have. You don't need to reinvent the wheel to provide enhanced Webhosting and site publishing services. All you have to do is pick a smart partner, like Trellix Corp., a private label web site publishing technology firm and managed hosting services specialist.

Founded in 1995 by Dan Bricklin, Trellix offers a suite of site building tools and services enabling end users to readily create professional web sites—regardless of their technical ability. Innovative customization and integration capabilities, along with proven low-cost managed application hosting services, give small business and personal publishing providers everything they need to stay competitive. Trellix's customers include nearly 30 of Media Metrix's top web properties, including About, BizLand, Namezero, and Terra Lycos, among others.

Massachusetts-based Trellix takes small-businesses seriously, and rightly so. According to IDC projections, the web publishing market for small businesses will be valued at $9 billion dollars by 2003. Large-scale operations, like eBay have entered the race with its Web Store offering. And Oracle recently inked a deal with NetLedger to provide a small business suite of web publishing services, forming a direct assault on Microsoft's bCentral.

Of myths and mammoths
But this doesn't mean that any one player dominates the Web publishing space. As you may recall, there is an age-old parable illustrating that even the smallest player can topple a giant with the right tools. All it takes to capture a segment of this lucrative but evasive small business market is a place for them to gather. This could be a community tightly focused on a single subject like local bike trails or dining hot spots, or a regional directory of homebuilders and handymen.

Because Trellix technology is capable of producing customizable Web sites that integrate seamlessly with both existing tools and third party services, partners—like your ISP—can configure over 200 individual settings, including product branding, web site designs and web services relevant to small businesses and consumers. Additionally, third party applications and services can be deeply integrated into the Web publishing platform using Trellix's standards-based architecture and robust APIs.

Raymond Boggs, IDC vice president of small business and home office research, said Trellix continues to demonstrate its understanding of the small business Web publishing market.

"Customization and integration will be key requirements for service provider success, and Trellix delivers the goods in both of these areas to meet providers' needs," Boggs said.

Trellix CEO Don Bulens said small-business operators who create and maintain their own sites are looking for full-featured, easy-to-use web publishing solutions because they don't have the time, skills or desire to be Webmasters.

"In this rapidly evolving market, companies who offer web services to small businesses can't possibly meet this need themselves," Bulens said. "They need a provider that can react to market demand and provide them with the very best web publishing tools and platform customization at a low cost."

Community property
Namezero, a registrar, hosting and domain management service, recently tapped Trellix's publishing platform to power its Web publishing ambitions. Namezero needed a solution to provide its community of nearly two million users with a consumer-friendly Web publishing option.

Bruce Keiser, Namezero president and chief executive officer, credits Trellix with enabling its members to readily build vibrant, professional web sites for use with their domain name.

Trellix Web Express—the cornerstone of Trellix's Web site publishing platform—is a full-featured, browser-based builder that enables users to create rich web sites. It features click-in-context editing, automatic page linking, e-commerce capabilities, as well as site promotion, and site management tools.

Enhance Partner Control is Trellix's latest Hosting Platform, which enables partner-definable levels of service, like bandwidth limiting to classes of users or even individual subscribers, along with a plethora of bells and whistles:

• Custom Hosting Services: Small business providers and ISPs can offer their subscribers tiered hosting packages with varying disk space, bandwidth allocation, and file type restrictions using the Account APIs.
• Extensive Bandwidth Management: The new platform implements custom bandwidth management tools that control throughput to individual web sites, significantly reducing connectivity costs.
• Abuse Management: Trellix provides monitoring of highly active sites to identify remote loading, software piracy and other service violations.
• Partner Control Center: Partners using the new hosting platform get real-time access to detailed statistics on builder and visitor activity, service level agreements, and bandwidth and disk space utilization.
• Scalability and Reliability: The Trellix Hosting Platform, located at an Exodus Internet Data Center, is extremely stable and scalable, as a result of Trellix's N+1 server pools, innovative high performance storage systems and multi-Gbps exit capacity. For 2001, Trellix has achieved an outstanding 99.9 percent uptime for its low-cost application hosting services.

Participating ISPs
Trellix contends that ISPs can decrease the erosion of their recurring revenue base accounting for a return on their investment after one year of Trellix services with an investment under $100,000 and some community building (right).

Trellix's hosting platform is scalable and can support ISPs with thousands of members on the low end to millions of members on the high end—site hosting is upgrades and broadband or leased line services for small businesses also provide new sources for incremental revenues.

Other benefits for ISPs include:

• True private-labeled solution
• ISP partners can do their own customization at no additional cost
• 200+ points of customization include site branding, content templates, Web designs, custom site building wizards and custom sponsorships.
• Multiple SDKs and APIs allow ISP partners to easily create and integrate new web services and existing technologies
• Deploy their custom builds on ISPs own schedule
• Rapid deployment and time to market; as short as a week
• Compelling beyond the banner sponsorship and ad inventory opportunities
• Lowest cost solution available

If Trellix also plays host for ISP partners, they also can have access to easily defined custom hosting packages and aggressive cost management.

With Trellix's technology, ISPs can offer subscribers a compelling service that helps reduce churn—at least according to Boston-based research firm Yankee Group—ISPs can reduce churn 50 percent by incorporating community features such as web site authoring and publishing services.

Whether you're considering a site-building app for subscribers or have an idea about filling a vertical niche serving a small business service segment—Trellix could be just the solution your business plan needs.

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