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October 18, 2001 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — XO Communications, Inc. (xo.com) announced yesterday a
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strategic relationship with Microsoft Corp. (microsoft.com) through which XO
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was selected as Microsoft’s private label hosting provider for its 1.6
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million bCentral registered users.
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The relationship also includes future plans to integrate key bCentral
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(bcentral.com) services into the popular XO flat-rate Xoptions packages of local, long distance, Internet Access and Web Hosting services that are offered on one telecommunications bill.
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Microsoft’s bCentral is a leading Internet resource for Web-based business
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tools and applications and offers an easy-to-use suite of services, based on
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the .NET Platform, specifically designed to help small companies better
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manage their everyday business processes.
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Using the XO hosting platform will enable Microsoft bCentral to offer a
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number of service enhancements to its customers, including nearly a two-fold
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increase in available disk space and data transfer limits and an increased
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number of email boxes. These enhancements enable small businesses to
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continually scale their website requirements as they grow their own
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businesses.
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In addition, XO and Microsoft are working together to build a technology
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alliance in support of the Microsoft.NET services, including Passport for a
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common authentication scheme and Exchange to enable higher-end business
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messaging and collaboration services.
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“Being named the key hosting provider for Microsoft bCentral is a tremendous
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validation of our leadership in the hosting marketplace,” said Nancy Gofus,
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executive vice president of marketing and Customer Care at XO. “We’ve
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developed an extremely capable hosting platform and view this relationship
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as a confirmation of the success of our efforts. While we at XO take pride
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in being selected by Microsoft bCentral to provide these services, we are
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equally excited about the opportunity to integrate key bCentral services
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into our Xoptions packages, to further simplify a customer’s
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telecommunications buying decision by extending our cost-effective flat-rate
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communication bundles with additional business enhancing online subscription
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services.”
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XO will integrate key bCentral services into the infrastructure of the XO
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shared hosting platform, providing these services to existing and future
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bCentral users. These integrated features will also be made available to all
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existing XO shared hosting customers.
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In addition, the bCentral services will be offered as an integrated solution
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within future XOption service bundles, which are sold throughout the country
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by the 800+ XO direct sales force and through XO in-direct sales agents. Key
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bCentral services being integrated into the XO shared hosting platform
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include:
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Traffic Builder – search engine registration and email newsletter
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campaigns
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Commerce manager – online catalog for selling on the Internet, full
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capabilities for managing and processing orders for inventory, and ability
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to publish catalogs to a variety of e-commerce marketplaces
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Submit It – tool for submitting a customer’s Web site URL to
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globally driven search engines
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List Builder – an email marketing solution that includes capability
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for building and maintaining customer databases and mailing lists
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Appointment manager – enables the Web-based coordination of
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meetings and appointments for businesses involved in the service industry
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The XO shared hosting platform being offered to Microsoft bCentral’s
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customers is comprised of fault tolerant, load sharing server clusters that
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provide enhanced and reliable service by sharing user request loads across
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multiple servers. This sharing capability allows for top performance, even
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amid large network traffic spikes or individual hardware failures.
About theWHIR.com
Since 2000, The Web Host Industry Review has made a name for itself as the foremost authority of the Web hosting industry providing reliable, insightful and comprehensive news, interviews and resources to the hosting community. TheWHIR is an iNET Interactive property. For more information on iNET Interactive, visit http://www.inetinteractive.com
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