Jan 22 2008

The ISPs and the Musical Chairs – Mergers and Acquisitions Roundup

Its been a busy time in the ISP/Registrar/Host M&A world, with providers vanishing almost on a daily basis.Some of the more notable M&As included:

2007

December

  • Spanish Registrar Arsys sold to The Carlyle Group and Mercapital private equity~£120,000,000 outright purchase. 550,000 registered domains, 170,000 customers, 250 employees
  • WebHost Automation Ltd (WHA) authors of HELM Windows CP taken over by SW-Soft (now renamed Parallels)No figures quotedbased on their (lack of) performance with other control panels acquired, thats the death-kell for HELM users
  • Chicago Hosts midPhase purchased in a cash deal by UK2 GroupNo official figures quoted, best guestimates £5,000,000. 250,000 hosted websites. 40 staffSeveral original MP staff setup a new brand SingleHop and party hard at HostingCon

2007

November

  • Swedish Managed Hosting pi.se picked up by InterouteNo figures quoted
  • Hostroute and Nameroute merged into UltraspeedShare Exchange between existing client and supplier. 50,000 hosted websites.
  • BuyAVPS acquired by prolific WHT poster AxisHOSTNo figures quoted

2007

September

  • Berkeley Data Systems sell online storage Mozy to EMC Corpororation£40,000,000 outright purchase. 180,000 clients.

2007

August

  • NaviSite goes on acquisition spree, buying Alabanza and Jupiter Hosting£8,000,000 cash

2007

July

  • NamesCo Registrar and Web Host sold out to Italian ISP Dada (Register.it S.p.A)£24,000,000 for the entire company. 265,000 registered domains, 80,000 hosted websites

(reproduced with permission from Host Acquisitions)

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2008/01/the-isps-and-the-musical-chairs-mergers-and-acquisitions-roundup/

Dec 24 2007

Christmas Opening Hours

Throughout the holiday period, our Support and Network Operations Teams will be monitoring and maintaining all servers and services as normal 24x7x365.

Due to administrative staff holidays, we will be operating a reduced Sales and Accounts Team until Monday 7th January 2008.

Normal operating hours (all times quoted are UK timezone – GMT/UTC):

Sales Team
Online sales through the website(s) is always available 24*7
Email/Ticket – Mon-Fri 9.00am to 9.00pm
Live-chat – Mon-Fri 9.30am to 6.00pm
Telephone – Mon-Fri 9.30am to 6.00pm

Accounts Team
Email/Ticket – Mon-Fri 9.00am to 6.00pm
Telephone – Mon and Fri 10.00am to 4.00pm

Support Teams
Telephone – 24*7*365
Email/Ticket – 24*7*365

Christmas and New Year special hours
25th December
Sales – Closed
Accounts – Closed

26th December
Sales – Closed
Accounts – Closed

1st January
Sales – Closed
Accounts – Closed

On 24th/27th/28th/31st December and 2nd/3rd January we are always very busy with new orders, so for efficiency ask that all existing clients use the online support system for Sales and Accounts questions rather than the telephone(s) – that way we can ensure current clients get priority service.

We would like to thank all our customers for your business throughout 2007, and to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a successful New Year for 2008! 

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/12/christmas-opening-hours-2/

Oct 13 2007

All Change At .Mobi

The founder of dotMobi – the company behind the first mTLD (mobile TLD) – stepped down last week, to spend time with his family.

Neil Edwards returns back to the US from Dublin where .mobi was based to pursue other projects, having successfully taken the idea behind a non-geographic domain extension from concept through launch.

Despite massive hype, advertising campaigns, attempts to make the mTLD “premium”and even take up by some of the worlds largest corporate entities – Disney and Sony for example – overall adoption of the TLD to-date has been poor, with it almost entirely being occupied by cyber-squatters hoping for big payoffs when it eventually does become popular.

In order to drum up some interest in {domain}.mobi Othello::Names have significantly reduced the pricing on new dot mobi registrations permamently

So grab you domain.mobi now while its still available at .MOBI Domain Registration

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/10/all-change-at-mobi/

Aug 13 2007

Domain Name Scammers Strike Again – Now Called Loovar.Co.Uk

We’ve had a number of calls this week from clients regarding domain names and competitors “reserving” existing client domains in alternate extensions.

The bunch behind the latest round of the age-old scam are Main Stream Tech who trade from :

  • www.streamlineltd.co.uk
  • www.mainstreamtech.co.uk
  • www.loovar.co.uk

and many others.

They’ll claim their address is

23 Castalia Square
Docklands
London
E14 3NR
Phone 0870 850 282

But thats just a forwarder to another address Wales that’s just a forwarder … you get the idea.

If you have been approached by any of these scumbags and sold something under VERY false pretences, immediately report them to

  • Trading Standards
  • Nominet

And then contact your bank – and get the payment you were conned into making stopped.

The basis of this (recurring) scam is:

You’ll get a phonecall from a slick salesperson …

Hi, my name is (made-up) and I’m from (official sounding non-existant organisation), we deal with (large number) of business domain names and hosting.
The reason for the call is we’ve just taken an order from
[ one of your competitors / another local business / a domain squatter] (select as appropriate)
for domains similar to your existing domain/business name.

You have xxxxxxxx.co.uk and we have been asked to register: xxxxxxxx.com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/eu/ch/mx/tw etc

At the moment these domain have been “reserved” and placed on hold for an hour, to give you opportunity to object.

Often these domains are registered in order to
[ damage your business / steal your customers / ruin you reputation ] (select as appropriate)
and you have this one opportunity to stop that from happening by buying the domains yourself from us now at (vastly inflated price)

If you want to stop this person registering your domain, we need to take your name and card details now, and can block the existing registration attempts.

Followed by lots more pushy sales tactics, attempts to sell you 10 years of hosting, offers of “free years” (for example pay for 5 years and we’ll register the domain for an extra year free for you) etc.

This current bunch of thieving-scum bounce around from host to host (as they get each of their reseller accounts cancelled) so any hosting they sell you isn’t going to be online for long – days usually.

Sadly LOTS of people regularly fall for this scam, which is why it’s so popular – my advice is NEVER buy something from people who randomly call you up !

For a quality domain registration, forwarding and hosting service, which doesn’t cost the earth and will still be in business this time next year, visit Astutium

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/08/domain-name-scammers-strike-again-%e2%80%93-now-called-loovar-co-uk/

Jul 29 2007

Chinese Blog Goes For NASDAQ Listing

Chinese Blogger Fang Xingdong is looking at listing his blogging business on the NASDAQ.

Fang Xingdong CEO of Bokee.com, started the company with funds generated as as an online commentator (blogger).


We are building a blog-based portal and we will be the first blogger ever to list on the NASDAQ

The company will receive US$10 million in financing next month from

  • 3 American venture capitalists
  • Hong Kong-based venture capitalist Softbank Investment International
  • An un-named mainland Chinese investor

China Economic .Net reported …

One of China’s most well-known bloggers hopes to ride the current boom in personal online journals and transform his blog site into a U.S.-listed Internet giant.

Accurate details of the product range of the new company are not available, but their initial offering of free hosting of chinese language blogs could be enormous.

The news may not be free in China, but personal publishing is about to take a dramatic leap with potentially hundreds of millions of online news reporters about to spring up !

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/07/chinese-blog-goes-for-nasdaq-listing/

Jun 04 2007

New Ordering Systems

We are pleased to announce the “opening” of our new online ordering/billing platform based around WHMCS at
https://www.astutium.com/cart.php

This will be replacing our various existing systems of WHM-AP, LPanel and over 30 of our custom orderforms over the coming months.

Each of the Astutium family of websites will be shortly updated to put orders through the online system, which will allow clients a centralised and simple way to

  • update their contact details
  • manage their domain registrations
  • view and pay their invoices
  • request hosting upgrades
  • access their control panels

Once integration and data-migration is completed, we will be passing any cost savings from the new systems back to the clients with lower annual renewal costs for domains – allowing us to remain as the cheapest accredited domain registrar in the UK

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/06/new-ordering-systems/

Apr 23 2007

Astutium acquire DuportOnline hosting business

Astutium Ltd (www.astutium.com), a leading UK provider of domain names, email/web hosting and online services for SMEs and corporates, today announced that it has acquired the UK and US operations of DuportOnline (www.DuportOnline.com).

“To move forward, improve, and expand DuportOnline we needed to introduce a new partner. Existing customers were the main priority when selecting a new provider. Othello was chosen because of their commitment to customer support.”, said Richard Adams, owner of DuportOnline.

The prices and facilities of services to existing customers are expected to be kept at existing levels and already preparations are being made to improve both the shared hosting and VPS facilities offered under the Duport brands. New US servers are being deployed immediately, and the existing UK systems have already been migrated to the Astutium datacentre facilities with no client downtime.

“Our first priority is the catching up of all outstanding support issues, and customer service enquiries. Followed by a rollout of new and improved services across the DuportOnline brand. We should begin our service improvement program within a few days, beginning with extensive hardware upgrades and extending the hosting possibilities for clients.” comments Rob Golding, Managing Director, Astutium Ltd, “For support issues client should use the usual DuportOnline customer support system and one of the Othello or Duport support technicians will get to your issues ASAP.”

Future plans for DuportOnline.com already being organised include:

  • Upgrades to all existing US services
  • Installation of new servers within the Astutium datacentre
  • Customer choice on hosting location (country)
  • Replacement Support System with extensive knowledgebase, online server status and improved ticket tracking
  • Extended range of VPS and Dedicated Servers options

 

Astutium Ltd are a UK Ltd Company, who have been providing internet solutions through dial-up & dsl services, domain name registration, hosting, dedicated server and colocation services for over 11 years, operating in the United Kingdom, Netherlands and United States, and with customers worldwide.

 

Mentioned on:

http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200704/1177377156.html

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/04/astutium-acquire-duportonline-web-hosting-business/

Apr 13 2007

More RegFly Woes …

So things look like they are going from worse to downright abysmal for the many beleagured registerfly clients.

What should have been a realtively painless excercise in admin contacts migrating domains away to a new supplier, with ICANN assistance if the RF systems failed, looks like an ever growing c*ck-up, with class action suits, domains getting deleted, and complete pandemonium.

Many of the RF-Refugee camp are switching to equally poor “cheapo” domain companies, litterally jumping from lifeboat to the next titanic in my opinion, selecting Yahoo, 1&1 and others for their new domain home !

An ever growing FAQ has appeared on the ICANN blog, and all those looking to exit RegFly are advised to read :
http://blog.icann.org/?p=85

Remember Astutium are offering FREE transfers until the end of May for anyone stuck in this fiasco – use Voucher Code RegisterFly at the checkout to get 8.95+vat off our usual costs.

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/04/more-regfly-woes-%e2%80%a6/

Mar 13 2007

And Register Flies off …

In a 2 week long madcap race against reality, registerfly has managed to change hands twice

  • first back to the original registration company that started it
  • second by US Federal courts handing control once more to K Medina – the man now (in)famous for spending his customers money not on the renewals they paid for, but on his much needed liposuction instead.

But all good stories have to come to a close, and last night ICANN pulled the plug on the beleaguered registrar with:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-16mar07.htm

So, no happy ever after in this woefull tale of the domreg company run by a big fairy … several thousand domains already lost by distressed and angry clients, and now a rescue-plan has to be enacted for the remaining 800,000 domains. No more RegisterFly – in 14 days they’ll have to rebrand as RegisterWalk.

From tomorrow until the end of March, all Domain Name Transfers to Astutium (an ICANN Accredited Domain Regsitrar), will be free and also come with as much assistance with domain recovery as we can to any RegisterFly refugees or anyone looking to move away from their existing registration companies.

Just enter voucher-code RegisterFly on the order to get your domain transfer for free.

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/03/and-register-flies-off/

Feb 28 2007

Data Centre Expansion – Astutium Ltd Expands again in London

New data-cente Suite completed within Legend IPHouse facility

London, UK February 28th, 2007 – Astutium Ltd ( www.astutium.com ), a leading UK provider of managed dedicated servers and colocation space, has again increased their footprint in London.

The company has just completed the setup of a new private “Clever Metal Suite” facility at IPHouse 2, E14 providing an additional 48 racks (over 2000u) of colo space. Dedicated 16*10gb private fibre was lit today, connecting the new suite from the existing London PoPs at Telehouse-North and Telehouse-East, as well as Gigabit Layer2 services to 3i owned TelecityRedbus-Meridian Gate.

The expansion immediately places Astutium as the largest supplier of colocation and dedicated servers within the Legend IPHouse data-centre, as well as the only fully diverse and redundant supplier within the high security building.

Colo space in London is becoming increasingly difficult to secure. The new suite at IPHouse complete with our own fibre to bring it on-net for AS29527 means Astutium can continue as the premier collocation provider in Docklands. reports Rob Golding, Astutium Ltd Director. 
This brings us to 9 DataCentre suites on three continents, ensuring that 2007 will be another year of record growth and quality customer service.

Permanent link to this article: https://blog.astutium.com/2007/02/data-centre-expansion-astutium-lt-expands-again-in-london/

Load more