(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Representing its foray into the web conferencing marketplace, web hosting provider TurnKey Internet (www.turnkeyinternet.net) has acquired Ohio-based Voxwire Systems (www.voxwire.com), which offers cross-platform, browser-based web conferencing.
According to its Wednesday announcement, TurnKey intends to use Voxwire’s Web 2.0-based technology to offer an easy-to-use and cost-effective web collaboration service, connecting customers with colleagues around the globe from its Albany, New York data center. Voxwire web conferencing service can accommodate thousands of attendees per meeting with screen and file sharing, PowerPoint presentations, whiteboards, text-chatting, polling and other collaborative features. Its platform-independent, Flash-based architecture offers users instant access from any web browser.
“Voxwire is a perfect fit with our current web hosting services,” TurnKey president Adam Wills said in a statement. “It extends our reach across a wide range of industries that are incorporating web conferencing into their operations. And schools looking to expand their distance learning capabilities will find Voxwire is a perfect solution.”
As businesses start to realize the benefits of telecommuting and virtual offices, TurnKey’s Voxwire is strategically poised to meet a web conferencing trend, which Frost & Sullivan market research projects will be worth $2.9 billion by 2011.
In addition to providing Voxwire Web Conferencing as a retail service, the company will be offering a complete private-label reseller solution for its web hosting resellers and wholesalers. Starting this month, TurnKey plans to cross-promote its hosting services and new web conferencing capabilities to customers worldwide.
TurnKey is not alone in offering web conferencing as an add-on service. As far back as 2005, Santa Barbara Web Hosting (www.sbwh.com) added Persony’s web conferencing solution VShow as a subscription-based web conferencing service. More recently, hosted services provider Apptix (www.apptix.com) launched a new partner program providing the tools necessary for a unified communications, offering resellers email, mobile email, web conferencing and instant messaging using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
