Please tell us a little about yourself, your position and duties at Hostway.

My name is Lauria Locsmondy, and I work as Public Relations Associate at Hostway.

I see that you’ve recently introduced Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services, how has this service benefited your customers?

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services enables our customers to easily create, manage and build their own collaborative Web sites and make them accessible throughout their organizations. This product enhances work-team productivity for small to medium-sized businesses through an easy-to-use, Web-based collaboration tool. It allows teams to keep connected and productive, enabling better decisions and stronger relationships with customers, partners and suppliers.  Users can more efficiently create and review any type of document with built-in document versioning and check-in and checkout capabilities.  Teams may also distribute business-critical information more securely through password-protected SharePoint sites rather than relying on email. 

SiteControl is the account management system used by your customers, can you tell us what are some of the benefits and how does the technology work?

SiteControl allows customers to personally manage their sites anytime and anywhere they have access to the web. Our upcoming new version of SiteControl will make it even easier to use than it is today. The improvements to our new version include more intuitive navigation, friendlier look and feel, and more powerful features to help with website management. It’s the most powerful yet still the easiest hosting control panel in the market today. 

Hostway has a partnership with ThinkAvenue.com. What is the purpose?

ThinkAvenue was developed to give growing businesses a valuable, content-based site that provides informative and solutions-oriented tips and articles. ThinkAvenue is a direct link to expert advice, answers to starting and growing business questions, and an avenue to other important sources that we feel will help small business owners and employees succeed on the Web.  ThinkAvenue is updated regularly and offers a unique grouping of topics and content for the business issues. 

What are the various hosting plans that Hostway offers? Do they cater to the small to medium size business or only large corporations?

Hostway caters to both small to medium-sized businesses and large corporations:

http://www.hostway.com/smb/index.html

I understand that Hostway offers three different reseller programs, what are the features of each?

The features of the plans are based on the type of volume and relationship one has with Hostway.  All three programs include the same hosting plans. The main difference is the commission received for referring customers.  The Affiliate Program is a simple plan.  You are given a link and new customers sign up via the link.  We track the Affiliate through the link.  For every new customer who stays with us for 45 days, the Affiliate will receive $25.00 dollars.  The agent program follows the same link technology, but it is a tiered commission structure.  According to the amount of revenue generated for Hostway, we will give the Agent a percentage of that amount.  For example, if an agent brings in $45 dollars a month for Hostway, the agent receives 3% of the $45 or $1.35.  If the agent sells $600, the agent receives 35% or $210.  Obviously, the more you sell, the more you can make.  The Private Label program is the best program for the serious reseller.  In this program, the reseller acts as the host.  He/she sets up all the hosting plans he/she wants under one account (unlike the above programs where customers who sign up are assigned there own ID).  Depending on the number of plans signed up, the reseller receives a percent discounted off his monthly bill.  This customer has the right to charge customers what he chooses, and benefits from the reduction in cost as the amount of customers grows.  If one is a serious reseller, this is the plan to take advantage of.  

Hostway has been profitable every quarter since its founding, which is very rare in the web hosting industry. What would you say is the #1 aspect that separates Hostway from other web hosts?

It may sound cliché, but we’ve always focused on our customers above anything else.  If our customers are happy, they are much more likely to refer Hostway to their friends and colleagues.  Having a strong referral base makes the profitability battle much easier to fight in a hyper-competitive industry such as Web hosting.  

What else would you attribute to Hostway growing to over 300,000 customers since its inception in 1998, becoming one of the largest web hosts in the world?

In addition to our strong customer focus, we’ve been aggressive in making strategic acquisitions to give ourselves a more global reach.  What’s more, we’ve developed as suite of independent brands that serve various hosting markets. The combination of focusing on our customer’s needs, growing globally and developing a strategic set of brands have enabled us to become a leading force in the Web hosting space.

How do you market Hostway? How much do you feel that marketing/advertising and branding has attributed to Hostway’s phenomenal growth?

Our primary focus is providing SMBs reliable, trustworthy online services so they can worry about focusing on their core business.  We communicate this positioning by making SMBs understand that choosing a Web host is about much more than the lowest price; It’s about who is supporting their Web site behind the scenes.  It’s about choosing a stable hosting partner that provides great service, scalable solutions and reliable infrastructure.  Marketing and branding has certainly helped Hostway get where we are today, but telling the world you’re the most reliable, trustworthy Web host only rings true if you can back it up. Luckily, we’ve been able to deliver on our promise.    

I believe Hostway is the world’s 5^th largest web host, is that correct?

Hostway is one of the five largest Web hosting companies in the world. 

Does Hostway have any special plans for 2005?

Why would we want to give away our big plans here?   In all seriousness, Hostway has too many exciting developments to mention here.  We will continue to make our services easier and easier to use while developing value added services that empower our customers’ to be even more successful .  

The new .Pro domain is offered exclusively by RegistryPro, which is a subsidiary of Hostway Corporation. How beneficial do you think it is for businesses to incorporate a .Pro domain?

RegistryPro is the sole operator of the .Pro Top-Level Domain (TLD) name, the extension for professionals.  Initially offered to doctors, lawyers and CPAs, we recently added engineers to the .Pro TDL with .Eng.pro and plan to continue to expand the professional extensions for .Pro.  The .Pro TDLs help professionals who have heightened confidentiality obligations by assisting in securing online communications and transactions such as court, tax and insurance filings. They also provide a distinctive identity on the Web.

Hostway just announced the launch of SiteBlog, can you tell us about this new blogging package?

We at Hostway are pleased to offer our customers the ability to add blogging to their Web sites – for free! With this easy and graphically appealing tool, our customers can communicate their message, whether business focused or personal opinion – in a more interactive, real-time medium. SiteBlog allows customers to create and maintain an online journal and create unique profiles from 12 changeable design themes.

With what-you-see-is-what-you-get postings, users may clearly and easily add information onto their blogs using various colors, fonts, numbered lists and bullets.  They may save drafts or publish work immediately, in addition to posting comments and pings on a per-post basis. SiteBlog also provides the means to maintain customizable categories and add standard HTML links within these groupings.

Users can feel confident about SiteBlog’s security features, which assure that only intended content appears on their blogs. Customers may take advantage of password-protected posting options, the ability to maintain comment rules, and the preference to publish readers’ feedback automatically — or only with express administrator’s approval. They can also manage comment-spam rules and require that their blogging submitters leave email addresses for follow-up purposes. 

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