(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Having played a key role in its merger with Website Pros, Jeff Stibel has tendered his resignation as president and board member at small businesses online marketing provider Web.com Group (www.web.com).
Effective September 30, 2009, Stibel has agreed to assist the company through a transition process for the remainder of 2009. Stibel intends to pursue other business ventures, and focus on his upcoming book “Wired for Thought.” He will continue in his director roles at various private and public companies, as well as Brown University’s Entrepreneurship Program and Tufts University’s Gordon Center for Leadership.
“Since Website Pros acquired Web.com nearly two years ago, Jeff played an important role in completing the integration of our two companies,” Web.com chairman and chief executive officer David Brown said in a statement. “His efforts contributed to our combined company delivering record levels of profitability and cash flow. We look forward to his on-going contributions throughout the upcoming transition process and wish him the best of luck with his personal and professional initiatives.”
Jeff Stibel said that his work at Web.com was a rewarding experience. “I am incredibly proud of the progress and success that Web.com has achieved and am honored to have been a part of that,” Stibel said in a statement. “Web.com has streamlined its operations, completed a difficult migration process and continued to expand its partnership channels. In doing so, we demonstrated the scalability potential of the company’s business model. I am confident that Web.com has the foundation in place to drive long-term growth and profitability, and the company is well positioned to capitalize on the leadership position it has established in online marketing for small and medium sized businesses.”
In the past year, Certificate Authority VeriSign (www.verisign.com) expanded its partnership with Web.com, letting Web.com customers implement VeriSign’s “Secured Seal,” which assures visitors a website is secured using industry-leading Secure Sockets Layer technology.
Web.com also resolved a patent dispute with web host Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) in which Web.com alleged that GoDaddy’s Deluxe Hosting Plan infringed on its patent, “Synchronized Server Parameter Database,” which gives customers remote access to a control panel that is part of the hosting service. The companies settled on a patent cross-licensing agreement, granting each other a non-exclusive cross-license covering the parties’ respective patent portfolios, including all patents that either company may issue from pending applications in the future.
