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Today we launched the WordPress Showcase, a display of some of the best and brightest WordPress users, who are using it to do a whole lot more than blog.

Pick your flavor and check out the possibilities available through WordPress MU, WordPress.com, WordPress.com VIP and WordPress.org.

Site screenshots are constantly updated, so what you see is a realtime look at what’s going on with our hottest users.

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Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - October 31, 2008 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, has debuted the launch of its direct attached storage (DAS), a new offering for dedicated and managed hosting customers requiring enhanced database performance and increased file storage capacity.

Rob Walters, General Manager of storage and data protection remarked, ''Web sites are the lifeblood of every company that operates an online business, so having a high-speed, highly available site is critical, especially during the upcoming holiday season. Our new DAS product provides online retailers -- and SMBs of any kind -- enhanced redundancy with clustering and failover capabilities. DAS is an affordable way to keep critical data protected, so companies can experience peace of mind any time of the year.''

The versatile DAS product, based on Dell's MD series, is available in three configurations that can be used as primary storage or for backup and archiving. Users will experience improved performance and increased security, since each DAS unit is directly attached to the customer's server. Its scalable design allows for daisy-chaining, so customers can add one or two additional DAS units to support up to 45TB of storage. Customers are also able to manage and monitor both their Dell servers and DAS devices through the Dell OpenManage management console.

The Planet DAS features a serial attached SCSI (SAS) architecture, which provides higher availability than traditional SCSI technology. It also outperforms SCSI devices, operating at 3Gbps.

The company offers DAS in three configurations to suit a wide range of business requirements. The Dell MD1000, priced at $300 per month and equipped with up to 15 drives, can be used for server expansion. The more robust MD3000 provides low-cost clustering and dual storage controllers for redundancy and failover. The MD3000 is available in a dual-controller/single-port option, priced at $500; and a dual-controller/dual-port configuration for maximum availability, priced at $650.

Recently, The Planet secured a new $45 million credit facility, as Wachovia Bank NA leads the transaction with $30 million, followed by Bank of America with $15 million.

Ultimately, The Planet's goal is to provide:

• High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 12 million Web sites worldwide. The Planet Alpha division provides the widest array of self-managed dedicated servers and advanced services backed by 24x7x365 support. The Planet Northstar Managed Hosting division combines a proactive methodology and seasoned IT experts to deliver a fully managed hosting solution, with the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and an enterprise-class network.

To learn more about the new solution, please visit: www.planetalpha.com/hosting-products/storage-data-protection/direct-attached-storage/.

For more about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Pasadena, California - (The Hosting News) - October 31, 2008 - ASP.net hosting and SQL hosting provider, DiscountASP.NET, has introduced free Sandbox Hosting to enable next-generation web application packaging and deployment, using Microsoft web deployment tools for developers.

Bill Staples, General Manager at Microsoft noted, ''One of our goals with the new Web Deployment Tool and Visual Studio 10 was to improve the application deployment experience. We wanted to make it easier for developers to package their applications so that others could deploy them hassle-free to production environments. We are thrilled to work together with our hosting partner, DiscountASP.NET, to debut the latest Web Deployment Tool and to offer a sandbox environment so developers can get first-hand experience to test these new publishing scenarios.''

DiscountASP.NET and Microsoft announce a partnership to offer a free open beta sandbox hosting program for testing the next-generation Web Deployment Tool from Microsoft. This program is designed for developers to experience and provide feedback on next-generation web application packaging and deployment scenarios.

The new partnership is hoped to provide a free sandbox hosting program for testing the Microsoft Web Deployment Tool. This program is designed for developers to get early experience with and provide feedback on next-generation web application packaging and deployment scenarios.
This partnership and beta program was unveiled at the Professional Developers Conference 2008 in Los Angeles during the session entitled, ''Deploying Web Applications with IIS 7.0 and the Web Deployment Tool.''
The free Web Deployment Tool sandbox hosting program is offered as an open beta and is limited to the first 2000 people who register. The beta hosting account comes with 50 MB of disk space and 50 MB of SQL Server 2008 database space. Interested developers are welcome to sign up at http://labs.discountasp.net. The sandbox program will continue until March 31, 2009.

Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET remarked, ''One of the common technical support issues that our team receives is from customers who have a working web application on their local development computer which fails to function properly when deployed on our production web hosting environment. The new Web Deployment tool makes deploying applications easier. We are proud to work in partnership with Microsoft to help improve the web application deployment experience for developers.''

As a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, DiscountASP.NET is an innovative global leader in Microsoft Windows hosting. DiscountASP.NET is one of the first hosts to offer Windows 2008 shared hosting, SQL 2008 hosting, and was voted Best ASP.NET Hosting Service in the asp.netPRO Magazine 2008 Readers' Choice poll for four consecutive years. Through strong word-of-mouth and their commitment to ASP.NET and SQL technology, DiscountASP.NET has become the choice for affordable enterprise-class ASP.NET web hosting in the US and UK.

For more information about DiscountASP.NET, please visit: www.discountasp.net.

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - October 31, 2008 - On-demand hosting services and virtual data center provider for the small to medium enterprise (SME), SoftLayer partner, the Mezeo Personal Cloud Storage solution, is designed to enable monetization for the Online Storage Market.

Dan Golding, Vice President and Research Director, Tier 1 Research explained, ''File server replacement is one of the highest growth areas of the emerging Internet software and services sector. Hosting providers, eager to grow that aspect of their portfolios, are partnering with or acquiring vendors in this market, due to the strong growth it will see over the next five years.''

Mezeo Software Corporation is a Houston based developer of online file services software, announces the industry's first deployable, white label online file sharing and collaboration solution, Mezeo Personal Cloud StorageTM (Mezeo PCS). Built upon the successful, highly scalable and secure Mezeo platform currently in production at KDDI (KDDI Secure Share), the third largest telecommunications company in the world, Mezeo PCS enables service providers to quickly leverage the fast-growing online file storage market and offer their own branded file service solution. Mobile operators, ISPs, converged telcos and managed hosters will find Mezeo of particular interest; it provides them an immediate entry into valuable services boost revenue and drive customer retention.

Peer-to-peer and file sharing services are part of a worldwide push by carriers to create new IP-enabled services for consumers and business users. According to a study from The Insight Research Corporation (''The Global IP-Based Applications Services Market 2008-2013''), the worldwide market for peer-to-peer and file sharing services is expected to generate $250 billion in revenue for carriers and ISPs over the next five years.

Steve Lesem, CEO, Mezeo Software remarked, ''The ability to store files online and access them from anywhere and anytime using PDAs, Web browsers or the Windows native desktop brings immense value to the business world where response time can determine the winner. We believe a solution like this will be very attractive for business users and especially SMBs, who often lack some of the tools that are available to large corporations.''

In addition to the traditional uploading and sharing of files, Mezeo PCS provides advanced collaboration capabilities through its ''Projects'' feature. Multiple users can manage a set of files, sharing and collaborating on them without actually moving the files from where they are stored or creating multiple versions of the same file. Collaboration is managed through a central file view (''Projects'') while access timeframes and permissions are enforced via the assigned ''Roles.''

Lance Crosby, CEO, SoftLayer added, ''Mezeo's Personal Cloud Storage solution enables SoftLayer to quickly and seamlessly offer a unique set of online file services with desktop, Web and mobile access. This has the potential to be a great solution for the hosting industry, resellers, and end users alike. At SoftLayer, we are constantly looking for enterprise-class, innovative solutions that we can integrate and deliver to all of our customers. Mezeo PCS fits perfectly within that philosophy.''

Out of the box, Mezeo PCS comes with the ability to download, share and collaborate via the Web, via the native desktop and with native clients for the Blackberry, Windows Mobile devices, and the iPhone.

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Mezeo is the industry's first provider of a deployable platform and white-label solution that enables Mobile Operators, ISPs, Converged Telcos and Managed Hosting providers to immediately monetize Storage as a Service. Designed for small business and prosumer customers, our Personal Cloud StorageTM Solution features secure file storage, advanced file sharing and collaboration, content tagging and true anywhere access from an integrated Windows' desktop, rich Web 2.0 browsers with BlackBerry smartphone and Windows Mobile native client access. Mezeo is easy to deploy, highly scalable and highly secure, with well designed APIs for platform extensibility.

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer provides next-generation web hosting and on-demand datacenter services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX and 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 about Mezeo Software Corporation, please visit: www.mezeo.com.

To learn more about SoftLayer, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

San Antonio, Texas - (The Hosting News) - October 31, 2008 - Hosting services provider, Rackspace Hosting, Inc., through its Mailtrust business-class email service, has selected Sonian to provide an email archiving service to its customers. Sonian provides an affordable, scalable and secure hosted email archiving solution for all organizations.

Pat Matthews, President of Mailtrust noted, ''The Sonian Email Archiving service is a great compliment to our business-class email hosting service. Today Mailtrust supports clients around the globe, which face the same regulatory and electronic discovery requirements that larger organizations face. All of these organizations need an affordable, scalable and compliant email archiving service to meet those needs. Sonian uses a cloud based computing and storage infrastructure to provide an extreme level of scalability. They are able to take advantage of economies of scale to help enable them to maintain an affordable pricing structure. By leveraging Sonian's advantages, we are able to offer a robust and affordable service while not losing sight of our core service: email hosting with expert support. We are excited to introduce this archiving service to our customers.''

With organizations in both the private and public sectors depending heavily upon email communication, email archiving has become a requirement for many businesses across the board. Archiving helps satisfy regulatory requirements in industries like finance, healthcare, government and many others that require the secure capture, long term storage and rapid electronic discovery of email data. Email archiving is also extremely beneficial in helping organizations address a number of operational concerns such as escalating capacity on email servers, backup and business continuity.

George Nichols, President and CEO at Sonian, ''Mailtrust represents an ideal partner for Sonian. With their years of experience delivering hosted messaging services to thousands of customers, Mailtrust truly understands their customers' unique requirements for implementing an email archiving service and will be able to satisfy these requirements with the Sonian Service.''

Sonian Archive is the first hosted archive solution created with cloud computing infrastructure technologies. Cloud design means very high reliability with no single point of failure. Cloud computing also means efficient use of computer hardware so that we can process more data with less hardware resources, allowing Sonian to pass the costs savings to our customers. Sonian's affordable, reliable and compliant email archiving service supports all mail platforms and all customer types.

Mailtrust, a division of Rackspace Hosting, provides small, medium, and geographically dispersed companies with business-class email hosting. The company manages and maintains the email service and hosting infrastructure, freeing up IT resources and eliminating the need for customers to purchase email-related hardware, software, and security services. The company's mission critical email systems are housed in Rackspace's carrier-grade data centers to help ensure uptime. Founded in 1999, and acquired by Rackspace in 2007, Mailtrust is headquartered in Blacksburg.

Rackspace Hosting provides computing-as-a-service, integrating the industry's best technologies into a flexible service offering, with the goal of making computing more reliable and affordable. A trusted partner to companies of all sizes, Rackspace enables IT departments to be more effective. Rackspace is distinguished by its award-winning Fanatical Support, furthering the company's mission to be one of the world's greatest service companies. Rackspace is recognized as one of FORTUNE Magazine's 100 Best companies to work for, ranking number 32 on the 2008 list. Rackspace's portfolio of hosted IT services includes managed hosting, email hosting and cloud hosting.

To learn more about Sonian Archive, please visit: www.sonian.net.

To learn more about Rackspace's Mailtrust, please visit: www.mailtrust.com.

For more information about Rackspace Managed Hosting, please visit: www.rackspace.com.