Daily Archives: February 16, 2017

Cloud hosting is an overwhelmingly popular option among small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), as shown by a new survey from Clutch, one of the leading B2B ratings and reviews sites. Nearly 95% of SMBs say they either already use a cloud hosting service or plan to transition to it.

According to industry analysts, the Clutch survey findings are indicative of a necessary trend, who suggest the transition to cloud hosting services is a good strategic move for SMBs.

“I don’t think you can truly move forward within a company without using cloud in some way, whether that’s by buying software as a service from somebody or creating your own cloud infrastructure for your business,” said Rachel Bair, Director of Hosting and Client Services at Unleashed Technologies, a web development and hosting service. “To stay competitive in your own vertical, cloud hosting will be the way to go.”

The move to cloud hosting falls in line with a general trend of data migration within the web hosting sphere. About 72% of SMBs say they changed web hosting providers at some point within the past 5 years. The largest percentage of those SMBs switched providers because they found a better value elsewhere.

“Data migration is mostly because of the commoditization of hosting,” said Bair. “Every year there are more and more providers for hosting, which creates more options. And as these competitors come into the marketplace, the offers and pricing tables are more robust.”

SMBs may be increasingly attracted to cloud hosting providers because of the difficulties they associate with web hosting. Eighty-six percent (86%) of SMBs surveyed had experienced an issue with their web hosting provider in the past year alone.

Industry experts emphasized that web hosting is a highly technical field and can be a challenge for those who don’t have the requisite background knowledge. Without skilled tech personnel making decisions, a business can easily run into issues.

“[Web hosting] has a very large selection of technical offerings… so customization and setup is not a simple process if you have no idea what you’re expecting from those services,” said Osman Seyrek, CEO at Renovatio Cloud Solutions, a cloud technology and custom software development firm. “I’m assuming that the 14% [who didn’t experience an issue] are the ones who had technical capabilities to estimate their needs and make the right choices from the beginning.”

The Clutch survey included 300 SMBs with 2-1,000 employees. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the companies surveyed have 200 employees or less.

For more information and to view the complete survey results, please visit: https://clutch.co/cloud/hosting#survey

New York, NY — AviarHost, a renowned web hosting company, announced the launch of a series of managed WordPress hosting packages. Since 2016, AviarHost has been providing reliable and inexpensive hosting solutions that include Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, VPS Hosting, and more. With several high quality services and around the clock customer support, the company has created a good reputation for itself in the web hosting market. Over the last year it has improved its satisfied customer base and exposure in the market. Taking into account the popularity of WordPress as an ideal platform for businesses, AviarHost has diversified its portfolio to cater for these needs.

WordPress has grown into one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) due to its ease and accessibility. For business owners who want a hands off approach to focus on growing their business, a managed WordPress hosting plan is the ideal solution. Thanks to a series of newly launched WordPress hosting plans, customers will enjoy free site migration, automatic setup, free backups and a 24/7 support service. The main aim behind the launch of AviarHost’s WordPress hosting plans was to make the setup of a personal blog or business website as hassle-free as possible.

AviarHost’s commitment to maintaining a high quality service is apparent with the large number of positive comments found across the Internet. With first-class performance thanks to the installation of brand new WordPress optimized servers and a professional team, AviarHost offers a hosting service suitable for both personal blogs and small businesses. A complete managed solution, 99.9% uptime and value for money are the fundamental values on which AviarHost has based its core business.

As the managing director, Tomislav Popec, explained, “With the growing popularity of the WordPress platform, many customers have requested a managed WordPress hosting solution. As a company that values customers’ needs before everything else we have invested in experienced support staff and innovative technology. We are now at a stage where we can offer a WordPress hosting service that our customers deserve. Our target is to be the best WordPress hosting company, and we believe our continued focus on customer satisfaction will help us reach this goal.”

There is expected to be considerable demand for these recently introduced hosting packages. Aviarhost’s comprehensive packages and aggressive pricing will worry competitors who are used to a near complete monopoly of this market. These cheap WordPress hosting packages will not be easy to compete with as they combine affordability and reliability, a combination that seldom works in harmony. The future looks promising for AviarHost as they look to make inroads into the competitive WordPress hosting business.

1stPoint Communications announced that it will be providing two new options for clients of its WebSite Source hosting business unit which will be available by the end of the first quarter of 2017. The two new plans: InstantPBX and InstantCS are the direct result of the intersection between the WebSite Source web hosting business and 1stPoint’s voice and messaging infrastructure.

With a few clicks hosting clients will be able to create a fully functional cloud PBX based on popular open source code. The virtual private server will include a toll free number, ten DIDs (direct inward dial numbers) and four SIP trunks with 10,000 inbound and outbound minutes included in the package. Telephone numbers may be new or be ported onto the platform from an existing traditional phone system or another Internet based PBX. ‘This platform is truly an InstantPBX,’ commented Kristen Vasicek, Director of Marketing for 1stPoint, regarding the new product. ‘In the new workforce subscribers are completely mobile and require access to their voice facilities any time, from anywhere in the world. Some organizations want the flexibility of having their own private cloud PBX.’

The second product, InstantCS, is targeted at web hosting customers that have order driven web sites and would like other ways to communicate with their customers. The new service will not only include popular authoring tools such as WordPress and Web Presence Builder, but also a series of WebRTC tools and will also include inbound voice services such as DIDs and Toll Free numbers so that a client can plug their whole company directly into their web site, eliminating the need for their legacy phone system entirely. These numbers will be text enabled and the web sites will have access to the 1stPoint messaging API natively. This ability addresses the needs of communicating with the new generation of customers who wish to use texting as their primary medium. ‘We have discussed these applications with both developers and other operators, who have struggled to monetize WebRTC. With these products we seek to capitalize on the technological advancement that WebRTC provides, while taking advantage of the unique set of resources that 1stPoint is poised to provide it’s clients,’ said Erik Levitt, 1stPoint’s CEO. ‘These tools provide our customers A New Way to Work and we look forward to their full deployment this quarter.’

The new services will be available as plans on the WebSite Source site as they are rolled out and will be available through its existing easy-to-use portal alongside the traditional product set. All of these services are available both directly to the consumer and via wholesale channels.

More at www.1pcom.net