ZNet India Blog

Rackspace, the world’s leading Hosting services and Cloud Computing provider, recently announced the launch of its enhanced Partner Network to help their partnering companies increased opportunity for revenue, training and marketing tools.

Rackspace revealed that it was able to do so purely on the strength of feedback from its partners. The new Partner Network is a four tiered structure depending on company size and level of sales. These four levels are Platinum, Gold, Silver and Member. The latest partner network makes it possible for all partners to aim for aggressive commissions. The most interesting element is that Rackspace at certain partnership levels would also pay commissions on upgrades and renewals- a noteworthy benefit that many competitors fall short of match.

According to Rackspace, some of the significant features of the restructured Partner Program across all levels include:
• Access to a dedicated sales representative
• On-Boarding support
• Sales and Technical training
• Access to the Rackspace Partner Program portal with special marketing, sales & industry information as well as networking opportunities with existing Rackspace partners
Rackspace announced that the partners who move up the ladder to qualify for Platinum Membership would enjoy additional benefits like:
• Access to the searchable partner database on Rackspace.com as well as the database on the Rackspace Partner Network portal
• Access to a Dedicated Channel Manager
• Discounts/commissions on upgrades and renewal contracts
• A Chance to participate in Rackspace and/or partner company generated marketing activities
• Inclusion in Promotions to Rackspace customer & partner base

Robert Fuller, Vice President of Rackspace’s Worldwide Channel said on the occasion, “We regard partners as an extension of the Rackspace family and have updated the Rackspace Partner Network to help ensure they receive the services and support necessary for long-term success.” Fuller added, “Rackers worked closely with our partners to develop a program that creates the biggest impact and provides the best experience for them, which we believe will in turn impact the broader customer experience.”

Jason Crea, VP, Client and Partner Engagement Sitecore, a latest member of the Rackspace Partner Network opined, “Sitecore has built its foundation on providing partners and customers with the best Web CMS platform, so it’s a natural extension to partner with Rackspace for its unmatched service and reliable hosting solutions,” Jason further held, “Performance, security, scalability and price are critical elements for our customers in building and hosting websites, blogs, and other Web applications. Based on Rackspace’s past successes we anticipate a valued experience for our joint customers.”

SmarterTools Inc., an information technology-management software company recently released the latest version of SmarterStats 5.x. SmarterStats 5.x is a wonderful web log analytics system that makes managing web stats and SEO efforts sound like a game. The best thing claimed by Smarter Tools Inc is that this Version 5.x offers total management of SEO reporting and website log data in a single application.

It is expected that key benefits of SmarterStats 5.x would be to:
• Track visitor trends, on-page behaviors, and conversions
• Track search engine positions over time to create successful SEO strategies
• Improve search engine ranking and visibility
• Increase website traffic
• Evaluate a website’s performance for unlimited keywords against competitors
• Identify under-performing areas of a website or online campaign
• Identify competing websites for search engine traffic
• Analyze page-load times and website performance
• Increase sales conversions

Tim Uzzanti, CEO of SmarterTools was heard saying on the occasion, “Your website is your storefront, and how you prepare your store for business will have a direct impact on how well your business will do online.” Tim added “Ignoring SEO is like having no signs and blank windows in your building. Potential customers will drive past your store, not even realizing you are there.”

If the findings of U.S. Small Business Association are to be considered, about 50 percent of small businesses fail within the first five years. Those that stay on usually excel at attracting new customers while developing and maintainig loyal customer base. The new features-packed SmarterStats 5.x will afford businesses with the tools they need to enhance their SEO strategy and attract new website visitors “while monitoring analytics to ensure a positive experience for existing customers.”

As the 2009 draws to a close it is only too natural to review the web hosting trends in 2009. The year 2009 worked as a very competitive one as more hosting providers fought with one another in a bid to offer attractive prices. Prices fell and consumers had a ball.

Among the top performers, Hostmonster got the most of subscribers mainly from the United States. This company has got the lowest cancellation rate and a fantastic customer support. It was even adjudged the best hosting provider of the year by AlreadyHosting.com

FatCow got attention for being the fastest growing hosting services provider. iPage, one of its sister sites started only in the month of October has set new records in the traffic and growth.

On the lowest price scale and cost-effective hosting model, WebHostingPad.com took the crown of cheapest hosting provider. For $1.99, it provides you unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space with a domain all yours.

On the side of premium service providers, HostGator remains the most-sought after leader in all these areas working on a no-contract basis. HostGator charges the customers on a monthly basis instead of the usual charges for one whole year.

The Big-G of online search and advertising, Google has released a new has launched a new public DNS service which can dramatically increase online speed & performance for web users.

This public DNS service can be configured by users to access via their own Internet connections.
Domain names readable by humans are translated by DNS servers into physical IP addresses of email, web and other Internet servers, allowing users to steer using URL or Uniform Resource Location names rather than numerical quad-dot addresses which are employed to approach servers on the Web.

We all know that currently the ISP or Internet Service Provider of users handles the DNS services however, Google declares that its in-house public DNS service will provide superior performance than most ISPs are currently offering.
Google Product Manager Prem Ramaswami in one of his Google posts remarked, “The average Internet user ends up performing hundreds of DNS lookups each day, and some complex pages require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading. Our research has shown that speed matters to Internet users, so over the past several months our engineers have been working to make improvements to our public DNS resolver to make users’ web-surfing experiences faster, safer and more reliable.”

Ramaswami emphasized that the idea behind Google’s new DNS service is not simply to build up customers, but also to incentivize ISPs everywhere to perk up the performance of their very own DNS services.
With Google’ s latest move into DNS services, it has become easier for users to actually avail them. Users looking on to choose Google as their DNS provider can root around in their network settings by configuring them to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as the primary & secondary DNS servers respectively. Let’s see how the ISPs respond to this tactical move of Google.

Dear Entrepreneurs, Friends and Professionals,

As You all know that ZNET, a leading Web Hosting brand globally has long been working behind the screens to unleash a powerful, user-friendly and revenue-generating Partnership program for all those who wish to associate with us in our growth curve.

Aptly named, “Private Label Partnership Program”, this PLP would go a long way in creating business growth opportunities for ZNET as well as its partner base.

Please find a presentation on Private-Label-Partnership Program :
Private-Label-Partnership-Proposal

Thanks!

Open-Xchange, a leading provider of integrated and scalable open-source email solutions for enterprises, government and
academic bodies recently announced enhanced updates to make aggregation of email and contact information simple providing anytime, anywhere access to users to their data.Mailing solutions of Open-Xchange are used today by more than 15 million users worldwide as hosted and on-premise business-class e-mail and groupware.

Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange, stated “Open-Xchange creates a data hub that gives end users control over their data. Using open and standardized data formats provides users and organizations with the freedom and security to use social web services for the benefit of their business, without many of the lock-in dangers inherent in such social web services.”

The new enhancements include features like the latest in line features of the Groupware, of such nature:

Usability improvements in the AJAX User Interface
Enhanced OXtender for Microsoft Outlook
New Online help and manuals
New team calendar view

The latest enhancements introduced by means of a wizard which simplifies the setup for new & existing Open-Xchange users. It configures the subscriptions of external mail accounts from Google, Web.de, GMX, and many others, along with social and business networks like LinkedIn, Xing,Facebook, and others, along with the push synchronization of mobile phones.