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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Several of the most notable stories from this week’s news were stories of acquisition and investment, a well that has been comparatively dry in recent months within the hosting business.
On Wednesday, we reported that Internet security firm and certificate authority VeriSign had agreed to sell its managed security services arm to security solutions firm SecureWorks, for an undisclosed amount. The sale is one of several already made by VeriSign, which plans to sell several other units in an overall effort to downsize and shift its focus specifically to its key businesses of domain registration and registry management and SSL certificates, as well as user authentication.
In more of an investment - and a relatively small one - than an acquisition, data center operator Terremark announced on Tuesday that virtualization software company VMware had acquired an equity stake of approximately 5 percent - paying about $20 million for 4 million shares of common stock at $5 per share. Terremark is a longtime partner of VMware, and a major customer of the company.
On Wednesday, wholesale network carrier Tiscali International Network, a division of Tiscali Group announced that it had been acquired by Italian private equity group BS Private Equity, in a deal that some reports valued at about $65 million. The division will be re-branded Tinet, and will continue to provide wholesale IP transit and Ethernet connectivity to hosting providers and ISPs around the world. The company will also continue its expansion into the US market.
And on Thursday, IT giant EMC announced that it had acquired data center management software firm Configuresoft for an undisclosed sum. The deal is one of what the company says will be a series of key acquisitions in the data center services market, designed to help the company manage its virtual sprawl. Configuresoft’s Enterprise Configuration Manager and Configuration Intelligent Analytics products will be integrated with EMCs solutions, says the company.
And on Friday, we reported on telecommunications company FiberNet Telecom’s announcement that it had entered an agreement to be acquired by bandwidth and telco company Zayo Group for $87.8 million in cash. The deal is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, and FiberNet says it will consider other proposals up to June 17.
While the acquisition and sale of IT companies can be interpreted in a variety of ways relative to the current economic climate, the spike in activity this week is certainly worth noting. Probably the most interesting of these stories to follow in the coming weeks will be the FiberNet acquisition, which may see interest or bids from third parties before the deal is closed.
Read Back Issues of WHIR Magazine
October 2009 - Web Hosting's All Star Team
This has been, for us, one of the most interesting, exciting and challenging build-ups to an issue of the magazine yet, Web Hosting's All Star Team. The balloting process was our first experiment with a kind of user participation we're planning to do a lot more with in the months to come. We had thousands of ballots submitted, with hundreds of write-in suggestions and a demonstration of user engagement that has us feeling super positive about the project.
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July 2009 - What am I Worth?
One of the interesting luxuries of working on a project like the printed WHIR magazine is that it allows us to play with things like our point of view from one issue to the next. In recent months we've been giving added attention to the kind of practical and applicable advice aimed at smaller hosts and resellers. This issue carries on with that point of view, asking, in our cover story, "what am I worth?" It's a complicated question without a clear-cut answer.
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May 2009 - The Blueprint for a Small Web Host
I was a little surprised by how difficult it became to see this idea through. We set out to assemble a blueprint for a small hosting business, but butted up pretty quickly against the general impossibility of covering all the territory that was out there to be covered. The basic constraints of a printed magazine, and the less-than-infinite amount of time we had available forced us to face the fact that we could never produce an exhaustive guide to starting a hosting company.
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