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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.
