December 18, 2002 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- In a move that could further the acceptance of Virtual Private Server technology throughout the Web hosting industry, hosting automation solution provider SWsoft (SW-soft.com) announced on Wednesday that Web hosting pioneer Catalog.com (Catalog.com) has deployed SWsoft's HSPcomplete automation system.

According to Alex Plant, director of marketing at SWsoft, Catalog.com's recognized influence on the development of the Web hosting business offers a considerable degree of validation to virtual private server technology.

Catalog.com is widely regarded as the first shared hosting company, says Plant. In 1994, the company developed a process for running multiple Web sites from a single server, allowing for a dramatic reduction in the price of hosting.

According to Catalog.com, the company's decision to offer VPS services came, in part, from a desire to advance awareness of the technology, while being among the first group of service providers to adopt the services themselves.

"We wanted to get into [VPS] because we see it as an emerging market," says Christian Henning, director of marketing at Catalog.com. "There isn't really a lot of consumer awareness right now. People really don't understand what it is. But, essentially, you can get a dedicated server for a lot less than you would normally pay. And that's where we saw the value in it."

Adding further significance to the deal is the fact that Catalog.com is SWsoft's hundredth customer since the launch of the HSPcomplete platform. According to Plant, the company's software is gaining considerable traction in the hosting industry.

"The total number of virtual private servers that HSPComplete supports in the industry," he says, "is approaching 100,000."

Along with HSPcomplete's server virtualization functions, says Henning, Catalog.com also intends to employ some of the business process automation functions of the platform, which will allow the company to expand its business in a number of additional new directions.

"The HSPComplete platform does offer quite a bit of automation," he says, "and we are planning on implementing a reseller program in the future that would utilize that. We have plans to do domain registration. We're ICANN accredited, so we want to get our domain registration going through [HSPComplete]."