The Planet, the world’s largest privately held dedicated hosting company, today announced the acquisition of Touch Support, LLC (www.touchsupport.com ). Based in Lafayette, Ind., the company provides server administration management services to its global customer base. Financial terms were not disclosed.

With this acquisition, The Planet will introduce a new portfolio of advanced services for dedicated hosting customers who are looking to optimize their business results without relinquishing control of their IT infrastructures. The new advanced services offerings will provide customers with the ability to select advanced services from a modular suite of solutions. Touch Support’s current portfolio includes server administration, technical support, security audits and server hardening, server virtualization, migration, monitoring and managed backups. The company also provides hourly server administration support for customers looking for one-time or custom requests.

“The complexity of managing an IT infrastructure continues to grow, and we’ve had a number of our dedicated hosting customers request that we provide additional services,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Douglas J. Erwin. “These companies entrust their businesses and their livelihoods with The Planet, and they come to us for our enterprise-class network and six world-class data centers. With the acquisition of Touch Support, we can extend our portfolio to include high-quality advanced services that enable us to help them grow their businesses.

“We looked at a number of companies in the services arena, and far and away Touch Support was the best fit,” Erwin continued. “About 25 percent of their customers use our hosting services, so they have a strong working knowledge of The Planet. Equally as important is their commitment to being a customer-driven company. Over the next few months, we’ll make a number of announcements about the breadth of our extended services.”

“The Planet offers Touch Support and our employees opportunities to grow the new advanced services business for their dedicated hosting customers, backed by solid financial resources,” said Touch Support’s General Manager David Lindahl. “Our existing customers also will appreciate The Planet’s commitment to being a customer-centric company, which reflects our own philosophies. I envision growing our services portfolio to provide even greater value for our existing companies and to those we will attract to our offerings.”

“We bring to The Planet a highly skilled team that’s been chosen for their technical ability, intelligence and problem-solving skills, as well as their natural inclination to help customers,” said Sean Richards, Touch Support’s Technical Director. “From our own dealings with customers, this is a market that continues to grow since so many companies need help but don’t want to turn over their entire IT framework to be managed. We plan to quickly integrate Touch Support and The Planet and then extend our services to our combined customers.”

During the third quarter, The Planet will make announcements about its Advanced Services portfolio.

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 6.7 million Web sites worldwide. By offering the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and unmatched network connectivity, The Planet helps turn information technology into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to successfully grow their businesses. For additional information, visit www.theplanet.com

Parallels, Inc., a leading provider of virtualization, datacenter automation and SaaS software, was named to the Red Herring 100 North America, which honors the top 100 privately-held technology companies.

According to recent IDC market data, Parallels is the world’s second-largest virtualization solutions provider. It produces: the #1 desktop virtualization solution, Parallels Desktop for Mac, which was the first to enable Apple computer users to run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously; the #1 container-based server virtualization solution, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers; and the world’s #1 control panel, Parallels Plesk. Parallels software powers more than 250,000 servers and 1,100,000 desktops, and services more than 10,000,000 end-users every day.

“Being named by Red Herring as one of the 100 top companies in North America is a great honor and further demonstrates our commitment to providing our customers with great technology that delivers real value every day,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “It is a tribute to our more than 900 employees around the world who continue to develop and market innovative software with the highest level of professionalism and customer service.”

“Having received more than 800 submissions, it is clear that we are witnessing a new outburst of creativity,” says Joel Dreyfuss, Editor-in-Chief of Red Herring. “With venture capital flowing again, it’s exciting to see technology innovators and business investors collaborate to create disruptive technologies. The Red Herring 100 North America companies are impressive up-and-comers, and definitely the ones to watch.”

Red Herring’s annual lists of top private companies are an important part of the company’s tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. Companies like Google, eBay and Skype were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors, and touted as leaders that would change the way we live and work.

About Red Herring
Red Herring is a global media company which unites the world’s best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine, an online daily technology news service, technology newsletters, and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider’s access to the global innovation economy, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy. More information about Red Herring is available on the Internet at www.redherring.com.

About Parallels – Optimized Computing
Parallels is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and service providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 900 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.parallels.com.

International Hotel Chain, Hyatt website to be hosted on Telecommunications provider AT&T servers.

Telecommunications provider AT&T announced on Friday it has signed a three-year hosting and managed services contract with international hotel chain, Global Hyatt.

AT&T will first provide centralized hosting services for Hyatt.com and for Hyatt’s property-management system. Throughout the next two years, Hyatt and AT&T will collaborate to migrate many other applications to the new hosting environment.

“A true global presence, secure facilities, disciplined processes and a dedication to customer satisfaction were all very important criteria to Hyatt,” says Phil LaBelle, VP of IT strategy, architecture and planning for Global Hyatt. “As we move to centralize the vast majority of our applications, AT&T has stepped up and continues to provide valuable guidance, support and direction every step of the way.”

Initially, Hyatt will use two secure data centers in North America. AT&T will then move Hyatt’s website to these new data centers, where the telecommunications provider will continue to provide secure hosting and around-the-clock monitoring services for Hyatt.com.

In these same two data centers, AT&T will also host Hyatt?s property-management system, servicing Hyatt’s network of nearly 300 hotels and resorts in North America.

In March, AT&T has expanded its data center network with a focus on Boston, Massachusetts, Dallas, Texas, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Singapore. Just six months prior to that, it announced new data centers in Toronto, Canada and Piscataway, New Jersey.

AT&T says its aligned advanced hosting capabilities will support Hyatt’s property-management system, enabling the hotel chain to optimize its core business services of locating, scheduling and managing rooms and sites for guests, clients and properties around the globe.

Hyatt will use AT&T’s online management portal to securely access to ordering and management applications as well as billing information, monitor application and network performance, and simplify its online accounting and data analysis.

After all the Microsoft take over bid over Yahoo drama had ended, Microsoft Chief Executive officer Steve Ballmer said on Friday that buying Yahoo was not a strategy in itself, and dropping the bid meant it now had $50 billion to spend on other acquisitions.

“Yahoo was never the strategy we were pursuing, it was a way to accelerate our online advertising business,” he told a packed hall at a technology conference in Moscow.

“We will spend money on some acquisitions. You can do a whole lot of things with 50 billion dollars,” he said.

Ballmer was responding to questions about what he planned to do with Microsoft’s huge cash pile after it walked away from a proposal to buy Internet media company Yahoo for $47.5 billion, or $33 a share earlier this month. Yahoo had rebuffed the offer, saying it would only settle for $37 per share.

Microsoft’s top executive was echoing a refrain heard from him in recent weeks: At a May 1 employee meeting, he said Yahoo was valuable as part of a strategy to beat Microsoft arch-rival Google, but there were limits on the price it would pay.

“Yahoo’s not a strategy, it’s a part of a strategy,” Ballmer had said three weeks ago in Redmond, Washington.

“We’re interested to pay for it (Yahoo) at some level and beyond that level we’re not willing to pay for it.”

Talks broke down May 3 and Microsoft said it had “moved on.”

Early this week, the two companies said new talks were underway on a more limited deal but neither side disclosed the terms. A source familiar with the discussions said Microsoft had proposed buying Yahoo’s search business and taking a stake in Yahoo after Yahoo sheds its substantial Asian assets.

In Israel this week, Ballmer said Microsoft was now not in talks to acquire Yahoo, but was looking at other types of deals with Yahoo, the world’s No. 2 Web search service after Google.

Microsoft has already made an offer to buy Yahoo’s search business and take a minority stake in the Web firm, a source familiar with discussions said recently.

Ballmer also dismissed suggestions Microsoft’s Silverlight technology would merge with its rival Adobe’s Flash technology to combat competition from a potential merger between Adobe and old Microsoft rival Apple.

“We compete with Flash … I’m open-minded, but there’s really no discussion of merging with Adobe. Developers should all learn Silverlight,” he said.

The Internet start-ups sector, which has recently seen a new class of instant-messaging tools, is not being used to its full potential, Ballmer added.

“There are many businesses that are in some senses under-appreciated by the market,” he said, noting particularly healthcare start-ups.

“There’s an aging population — it’s one of the biggest-growing parts of the world economy.”

Gawkwire Web Hosting News today launched its freshly designed Web hosting and Internet news portal, offering breaking news, features, how-to’s, interviews, video stories, and more, updated 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The site’s editorial content, produced by a team of award-wining and widely published technology journalists, offers a new perspective on Internet news and delivers stories from a variety of beats, including Web hosting, Business, SEO/SEM, Domain names, Web design, Events, and Promotions.

Gawkwire allows readers to participate in the conversation through Network Journalism—stories within the hosting and Internet network with real journalism, not solely rerun press releases. In addition to submitting stories, readers can comment, vote or recommend stories, interact with editorial staff, and create personas that allow them to seek out and talk with other Gawkwire readers.

“We designed Gawkwire to build on the strengths of other hosting news portals and magazines. Unlike many sites, our content is updated continuously, not once a day or even once a week. We take it a step further, by creating a dialogue with our readers that enhances the overall experience of our site,” said Robert Lang, Gawkwire managing editor. “And we don’t stop with just news articles. Gawkwire’s rich content covers a wide spectrum, with everything from video blog posts to executive interviews.”

Gawkwire extends its coverage beyond the Internet by delivering breaking news on Web Hosting, Technology, Business and other content to virtually any mobile device. For more information, please see http://Mobile.Gawkwire.com.

Gawkwire’s news and video content is available for syndication on continuously updated RSS feeds. To access these feeds, please visit http://www.gawkwire.com/index.1.rss.

To learn more about Gawkwire, please visit http://www.gawkwire.com.

About Gawkwire Hosting News

Launched in 2008, Gawkwrire Hosting News is an innovative Web hosting and Internet news destination offering breaking news, features, how-to’s, interviews, video stories, and more, updated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Its award-winning editors and journalists craft stories encompassing a variety of beats, including Web hosting, Business, SEO/SEM, Domain names, Web design, Events, and Promotions.

3FN Marketing, a pay per click advertising online network and ppc webmaster affiliate program run by dedicated server provider 3FN, announces recent significant increase in affiliate members.

3FN Marketing proudly announces its recent significant increase in affiliate members that, beyond doubt, demonstrates the excellence of 3FN Marketing webmaster affiliate program services and the profitability of provided webmaster affiliate opportunities. Currently 3FN Marketing’s webmaster affiliate program has proven to be the most profitable and successful for thousands of webmasters all over the world.

“The evident reason of the current rapid increase in affiliate members is the provided profitability of 3FN Marketing webmaster affiliate program. With the rapidly changing online affiliate market and Internet business opportunities in general, we manage to adapt to new online marketing environment and provide properly our clients with flexible and constant revenue offering capital opportunities to earn money without large-scale investment and risks,” says Dean McToner, the 3FN Marketing spokesperson. “Today we’re really proud of achieved results but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop at achieved and reap the fruits of our labor, but quite the contrary, now we’re focused on achieving the premium quality of our affiliate program creating new money-making opportunities for webmasters.”

Having the experienced and enthusiastic team the company implements ideas and approaches that make beneficial developments and projects come true. Due to rapidly-developing beneficial opportunities and the efficiency enhancements, 3FN Marketing’s has been offering webmasters the most reliable and beneficial affiliate opportunities, providing affiliate approaches to continually rise revenue streams. The company’s crucial goal is to create the simplest and most convenient ways to earn decent profits and share benefits and abilities, which allows webmasters to gain high revenue and constant money income. 3FN Marketing suggest the methods to get the maximum from the online marketing in most efficient and alive way.

3FN Marketing is a pay per click webmaster affiliate program and online advertising and marketing company. 3FN Marketing webmaster affiliate program is offering beneficial online opportunities for webmasters to increase revenue from their web sites, blogs and online forums by becoming affiliates provided with benefits from a revenue share up to 95% from the internal bid price and stable weekly payments.

3FN Marketing online advertising services are pay per click based as it is known to be the most efficient and productive approach to online advertising. Website owners can advertise their sites by creating pay-per-click advertising campaigns accordingly to their niche and receive considerable amounts of targeted traffic paying for clicks starting from $0.05.

3FN Marketing ppc advertising network and webmaster affiliate program are subdivisions of 3FN, a global dedicated server and shared, collocation hosting services provider with the headquarter in San Jose, California. The company has established offices all around the world, in London, UK, Delhi, India, Crimea, Ukraine and in countries of European Union.

The company provides free 24/7/365 technical and customer support via phone, online chat and ticket system. More information on dedicated server and other web hosting available at http://www.3fn.net, on pay per click advertising and marketing services and webmaster affiliate is at http://marketing.3fn.net.

SoftLayer announced today that it had completed the first level of integration between its API and the Plesk utility for managing server infrastructure.

Plesk users can now use a single interface to seamlessly access all SoftLayer management tools. Nathan Day, Chief Technology Officer of SoftLayer, will be presenting this new feature at the third annual Parallels Summit in Washington, D.C., on May 19 and 20, 2008.

SoftLayer also announced that it had added rackAID to its Preferred Partner Program. rackAID is now a preferred service provider of server management and Plesk expert solutions to SoftLayer. The agreement builds upon the two companies’ long-standing referral program.

rackAID delivers managed services and support to businesses employing SoftLayer infrastructure for their global IT needs. The company is a specialist in administering and maintaining computing clusters utilizing the Plesk control panel.

“SoftLayer believes that the best approach for our customers is to create an ecosystem of best-in-class solutions that work together to address all requirements,” said George Karidis, Chief Strategy Officer at SoftLayer. “We prefer not to compete with our partners; rather, we seek out companies that share our vision and approach to help our customers grow.”

About SoftLayer Technologies
Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers next-generation web hosting and on-demand data center services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX, Seattle, WA, and Washington, DC. Utilizing proprietary management tools coupled with the industry’s first network-within-a-network topology, the company delivers unprecedented power and control to securely manage IT environments while providing unparalleled scalability. For more information please visit www.softlayer.com or call 866.398.7638.

About rackAID
Since 2000, rackAID has been a leader in outsourced IT infrastructure management. By delivering cost-effective support solutions, rackAID clients benefit from increased uptime, greater security and the peace of mind that their online operations will run smoothly and efficiently. rackAID provides IT management services for major Web hosting control panels and Linux-based servers. It offers a range of services to meet the demands of nearly any hosting project. Visit http://www.rackAID.com for more information.

Contact:
Shawna Furr
214.442.0584
press@softlayer.com

MochaHost.com has announced the launch of its new Affiliate/Referral program. The affiliate program is FREE to sign up and available for both current and new MochaHost’s clients. MochaHost’s clients will be able to earn revenues by referring the service to others and by placing simple banner ads at their web sites.

“We are exciting to introduce this new program and pass the profits directly to our clients. Our clients would be able to earn up to $366 per sale with average sale $75-$150”, says Jim Truong VP of Marketing with MochaHost.

The affiliate program offers a $10 sign-up bonus and is based on a flat 50% commission from each sale – regardless of the number of sales per month or their size.

More details are available at:

http://www.mochahost.com/affiliate

About MochaHost:

MochaHost is located in the heart of Silicon Valley (San Jose, California); specializing in providing professional hosting, web design, E-commerce, and Internet promotion services. MochaHost’s plans are designed to tailor to specific needs – from personal use/small businesses, to sophisticated E-commerce sites with higher requirements for bandwidth and disk space. For more information about the company, please visit us at: http://www.mochahost.com.

Contact:

Tracey Anderson
PR & Marketing
tanderson@mochahost.com

MochaHost.com
2880 Zanker Rd # 203
San Jose, CA 95134

Free Tel: 1-888-676-1343
http://www.mochahost.com

Domain.com Promotion to giveaway free domains and several discounted services.

Domain.com, a domain registration company and provider of managed web site services, declared that it is helping individuals and businesses get up and running on the web with a special ‘Free Domain Day Giveaway’ promotion on Tuesday, May 20, 2008. It announced that the visitors to the Domain.com web site will get a chance to win one of 25 free .com, .net, and .org domains every hour from 9:00am to 4:00pm Pacific Time. During the giveaway, it will be promoting its full array of value added services, including Web hosting with a free Web site builder, URL and e-mail forwarding, e-mail accounts and private domain registration, adds the company.

The company avers that the free Domain Day Giveaway will also feature multiple discounts and promotions that visitors can take advantage of for additional web service savings. During the event, it will offer one new free domain with the purchase of any one year or above web hosting plan. In addition, all one year and above hosting plans will be 20 percent off during the Free Domain Giveaway, bringing the cost to as low as $4.20 per month. Further, to maximize value for consumers during this special event, it will also offer two domain names for the price of one.

David Steinberg, Marketing Director of Domain.com, said, “Domain.com’s ‘Free Domain Day Giveaway’ gives consumers the ideal opportunity to take advantage of our comprehensive services, at little to no cost, to start creating an exceptional online presence.”

Hosting provider Infrenion (infrenion.com) reported this week that it has introduced an affiliate marketing program for the first time.

The company says the affiliate program is free to join and open to everyone, offering a $10 signup bonus and a 10 percent commission on each sale delivered to the company.

According to Infrenion’s website, the company was founded in 2002, and though it began as a small firm serving clients in Singapore and elsewhere in Asia, it has since expanded with servers located in the UK and US to serve companies in both North America and Europe.

The company says the affiliate program will pay out once a month, for the previous month’s sales, via PayPal. Affiliates manage their accounts through a control panel offering traffic logs and commission information.

Affiliates place graphic and text links on their page, incorporating their affiliate code into the link, as with most any affiliate program.

In the announcement, Infrenion VP of marketing Daniel Hanczyc says he expects the affiliate program to be a successful channel for acquiring new customers, as well as for benefitting existing ones. “The affiliate program is unique,” he says, “and we have kept it simple. A referring URL is enough to be an affiliate.”