Dedicated Server Reviews

HostedToday recently announced it had acquired TheGreatHostingCompany. I tracked down HostedToday owner Rodney Ringler, or was it the owner of  RoundBerry? Or the person who owns HostChart.com? All the same Mr. Ringler. He is an unabashed self promoter, nothing wrong with that.

Rodney confirmed one of my hosting theories, the internal combustion model. He has several brands, all competing with each other, all about the same price point, all answered by the same customer service staff. Sounds synergistic.

Combined Ringler’s four hosting brands serve about 10,000 accounts, the recent acquisition of TheGreatHosting Company added about 200 accounts. But it was for a friend and it got him a press release.

With internal combustion you spread your bets with several brands, if a potential customer does not like brand "A" maybe they will like brand "B". Same type servers, same data center, same staff but different skins. Many web host firms do this.

As I have told other hosting firms, he should add some high-octane to the mix.  Why have your top price at $24.95 as the RoundBerry shared Corporate… when your new brand “OpiumHost” (I made that up) can have basic corporate “red line” hosting for $49.95 – and expanded shared hosting plans up to $185.00. Many buyers like to pay more, it is obviously better.  Same type servers, same data center, same staff but different skin. Yes much higher margins.

Not only do you make more money, when you go to sell your conglomerate you have pushed up your average rate. Higher average rates will command a higher price and make your firm easier to sell.

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A recent case filed by Dell against a number of domain tasters and their registrars attempts to hold the registrars liable for infringing some of Dell’s intellectual property.  The claims that are relevant to domain name registrars allege that at least 3 registrars created a chain of registrars who took advantage of the ICANN 5 day redemption period to profit off Dell’s trademarks.  Dell alleges that these registrars allowed domain tasters to redeem domain names at one registrar and subsequently register it at an affiliated registrar.  This would preserve the taster’s interest in the domain name, and allow the affiliated registrars to share in any click through revenue created by the registration of the name.

Without going into the technical legal arguments raised by this case, a suit against domain name registrars has serious implications for hosts and other internet infrastructure providers.  Dell’s arguments are very similar to copyright infringement claims made in the early days of the web:  that those who facilitated the infringement of the copyrighted work were liable as third parties since they facilitated the infringement, and profited from it through the fees they collected.  While the facts in Dell’s case are pretty sensational (a chain of registrars profiting off a nuance in ICANN rules), the case shows that transparent attempts to exploit legal loopholes, are often only temporarily successful.  In this case, setting up a chain of (allegedly) related registrars to profit off of a registered trademark merited a swift response from Dell.

So what does this mean for hosts and other Internet infrastructure providers?  The first lesson is that the doctrine of third party liability for intellectual property infringement is alive and well.  This means that you need to remain aware and vigilant about your business activities.  This vigilance is important particularly in the area of trademarks, where, unlike copyrights, there is no “safe harbor” for businesses who are simply links in the chain of bad acts of customers or third parties.  A second lesson relates to Domaining.  While initially a suspect business, domaining has become a legitimate part of the Internet.  Hosts and other Internet infrastructure providers need to be aware that registering domain names involves a different risk assessment than other business efforts.  Because domainers tend to be very creative in their business, and business creativity often requires a higher level of legal analysis, those who provide business services to domainers need to examine whether the processes and procedures they have put into place effectively isolate the risk that these new customers may pose to their business.  

Impulse Web Hosting is coming up with new Shared hosting plans ranging from 250 Mb to 2 GB disk space and with unlimited data transfer. These plans are ideal choice for small business websites and small email setup. All the plans comes with ASP.net 1.1 and 2.0 support along with PHP and free MS access support. These plans will be hosted at VSNL and Netmagic Datacenters in India.

These plans will coexist with our regular web hosting plans ideal for basic websites available at http://www.impulseweb.net/shared/ .