October 21, 2005 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The week's Web hosting news saw a flurry of management changes and a variety of corporate news from some of the industry's largest players, while several companies released updates to their data center automation solutions.
The biggest news came on Tuesday with Interland announcing that it had downsized its staff by 38 percent, leaving it with a total headcount of 280. The cuts included a reduction in the company's executive management team from seven to four and the elimination of 139 positions as a result of the sale of its dedicated hosting division to Peer 1 Network. Newly appointed CEO Jeffrey M. Stibel said the moves were necessary in order to streamline the company's operations.
The wave of appointments began on Monday with EDS and Tucows adding new members to their boards. David Yost, current CEO of pharmaceutical distributor AmericsiourceBergen, was named to the EDS board, while Allen Karp, former president, CEO and board member for the Ciniplex Odeon Corporation, joined Tucows's board.
On Tuesday, content delivery network operator Akamai Technologies expanded its management team with the appointment of new chief financial and technical officers. Vice president for the IBM Systems and Technology Group, J. Donald Sherman, will be the new CFO in a month's time, replacing the outgoing Robert Cobuzzi. Akamai employee Michael M. Afergan will be the new CTO, effective immediately.
Also on Tuesday, hosting, application and managed services provider RagingWire named John Hoffman its new chief executive officer. He replaces co-founder George Macricostas, who will now serve as executive vice chairman of the board of directors and chairman of the strategic alliance and planning committee.
And on Wednesday, Comodo's Web hosting automation software division Positive Software appointed Carlos Rego as managing director. With Positive Software since 2002 as its director of business development, Rego will take control of the company's sales, marketing and business development operations.
The week also saw a departure with Tuesday's resignation of Red Hat co-founder Bob Young, who is leaving to pursue other entrepreneurial endeavors. The news comes on the heels of last week's high profile resignations. Equinix founder and CTO Jay Edelson announced he would transition to an advisory role and Radiant president, CEO and board member Jim Grey stepped down.
While all the shuffling in management circles was taking place, hosting software vendor SWsoft and e-commerce hosting provider Digital River unveiled plans to expand into Asia. SWsoft announced the opening of SWsoft China with the acquisition of ValueOf Software Technology, a hosting software developer based in Beijing. SWsoft will localize its products for the Chinese market and continue marketing ValueOf's solutions. Meanwhile, Digital River opened an office in Tokyo, Japan. The company will offer a full suite of e-commerce outsourcing services with local language and currency support.
Finally, the release of updated versions of software tools for managing data centers was another prominent theme in the week's news.
On Monday, VMware unveiled ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter 2. ESX Server virtualizes and consolidates data center hardware, while VirtualCenter automates and manages virtual infrastructure deployments. And also on Monday, Opsware updated its Network Automation System with the introduction of version 4.5 and Opalis Software released Integration Server 5.0, a solution for integrating and automating data center components.
Although the week began with the more sober news of a major player's restructuring, the overall health of the industry was on full display this week with some noteworthy expansions and a strong showing at ISPCON in Santa Clara, California, where the hosting industry was the topic of nine conference sessions.
