As you might have already read, Hostway announced today that it has acquired Affinity Internet, adding another company to the short list of Major Players in the shared Web hosting space.
I spoke to John Lee, Hostway’s vice president of global marketing and Andrew Schroepfer, president of Tier 1 Research today, which is probably evident from this feature.
As is sometimes the case, there was interesting discussion in both conversations that didn’t quite fit into the scope of the story.
One interesting thing that came up was that John Lee, in discussion of the deal, said “I believe this effectively puts us as the largest shared hosting provider in the world. . . in terms of customer count, as well as revenue.”
Hostway-plus-Affinity is without question one of the big players in shared hosting now, but this seems like a bit of an exaggeration. But more interestingly, it is illustrative of the fact that the size and influence of a Web hosting company can be hard to define.
Andy Schroepfer agrees:
“As you well know, there are a billion ways to define this industry. If you want to do domains or servers or. . .”
At any rate, Hostway is now of the scale where that kind of assertion, though perhaps not 100 percent accurate is within the realm of believability. What a difference a day makes.
Also interesting were some of the lesser-known assets of both companies, which John Lee discussed:
“I think something that might not be obvious is that as a combined company, we actually have a pretty robust channel partnership, in terms of helping broadband providers both on the telco and the cable side, and online portals, to offer value-added Web services. I can’t name names, but as a combined force, we’ll have some of the biggest names in North America, and be the private label Web hosting provider to those providers, so that they can offer Web hosting and other Web services, such as hosted Exchange and online backup to their customers, to add more value to their broadband products.
That’s probably the biggest part of the not-so-obvious news.”
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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