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For those of you that follow such things, there was a hugely prescient blog post written here at TheWHIR in April. Here you can view the original post entitled, Why Yahoo Should Sell. Among the many other wise words included in this post were the following:

''The truth - though it hurts for Yahoo to hear it is this - they should immediately make a deal with Microsoft. If Yahoo is so certain that they are going to make a TON more money in the next three years, then they should make a deal that includes lots of Microsoft stock. That way, when the Yahoo piece of Microsoft outperforms, Microsoft stock will go up.''

So what was the deal that I was advocating at the time? Microsoft had offered to purchase Yahoo in a deal that was worth $38 billion (that's billion with a B). Yahoo turned the deal down. Then CEO, Jerry Yang, had said of the deal at the time, ''With the distraction of Microsoft's unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history so that we can maximize our potential to the benefit of our shareholders, employees, partners and users.''

Okay Jerry. So what has transpired in the meantime? Yahoo's stock price has fallen to settle at a current company value of...drumroll please...$12.67 billion. So not listening to me has cost the company - wait, let me do the math: $38 billion - $13 billion = $25 billion. Wow - that was really stupid.

So now the financial cost has caught up with CEO, Jerry Yang - the man that most credit for the failed deal. Mr. Yang announced this week that he would step down as CEO of Yahoo. And so the man that popular investment television host Jim Cramer labeled a ''value wrecking ball'' will go. I contend that it's too late. Yahoo is essentially done. The value is gone. Microsoft has walked away - really.

This saga should act as a lesson for those of us fortunate enough to be working deals - of any size. Don't let the big buyer get away. You may never get another chance.

This content was written by Derek Vaughan exclusively for the Web Host Industry Review.

Jupiter, Florida - (The Hosting News) - November 19, 2008 - Web hosting provider, HostNine, has pre-launched a new website focused on enhanced customer support, with simplified service level agreements, for its global hosting offering.

HostNine completes a series of updates internally, as part of its global web hosting mandate. HostNine's new vision for hosting includes standardized hardware, hosting packages, geographical diverse locations, and easy to read service level agreements.

Clients may select 1 of 10 geographical locations and include unlimited storage and bandwidth. In a market that is focused on stack and rack hosting, HostNine is also limiting the number of accounts per geographically diverse server to less than 500. Through this new product launch, the unlimited hosting plans are hoped to bring together reliability, scalability, and global diversity.

Ben Gabler, Operations Manager of HostNine commented, ''The process allows capacity planning and the ability to provide clients with the resources they need to host dynamic applications such as blogs, content management applications, and websites that load quickly.''

According to the company, the foundation for the standardization provides equal quality across all 10 major points of global presences provided by HostNine.

As HostNine prepared for this major shift in business model, it has spent the last 3 months standardizing web hosting servers to a single highly available Quad Core Xeon based processor with 4GB of RAM and RAID based hard drive configuration.

The management team at HostNine reviewed current documents and revised Service Level Agreements to be easily readable and simple to understand.

Mr. Gabler added, ''Our entire management team spent a full day simplifying the language so that existing customers and new customer alike could read and understand our promise in less than 1 minute. In reviewing hundreds of Service Level Agreements, most would require a full team of attorneys to actually understand.''

Since 2006, HostNine has spent time building a reputable customer base and building a strong product set that includes Windows Web Hosting, Linux Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting and an exclusive geographically diverse infrastructure that provides instant setup of websites in 1 of 10 international data centers. By working with major data center providers, hand selecting hardware components, and custom development of a global hosting infrastructure HostNine provides a premium web hosting solution at an affordable price. HostNine is the leader in customer service, technology, and geographically diverse web hosting services.

To learn more, please visit: www.hostnine.com.

San Antonio, Texas - (The Hosting News) - November 19, 2008 - Managed web hosting and IT services firm, Rackspace Managed Hosting's cloud division, Mosso, has been chosen to power non-profit SaaS provider delivering enterprise-class software solutions, Pangea Foundation.

Pangea will leverage the Cloud Sites to provide hosted services to a growing number of its 1,500 non-profit customers. Pangea has been a Rackspace managed hosting customer since early 2007, and also utilizes hosted Exchange mailboxes from Mailtrust, Rackspace's email hosting division and most recently came to Mosso for assistance in providing online natural disaster support.

Kraig Kuipers, President and CEO, Pangea Foundation noted, ''In addition to using Rackspace's managed hosting offering to run our mission-critical software applications, we now rely on Cloud Sites during natural disasters to get our 211 sites up fast and to meet the demand that can be caused by unpredictable traffic spikes. Rackspace has indeed created a hosting portfolio to meet all our IT needs with a suite of solutions that provide scalability and reliability at a lower cost.''

After creating the disaster relief software solutions used by 211 San Diego during the 2007 San Diego fires and by 211 Iowa during the 2008 Midwest floods, Pangea quickly realized that cloud computing technologies are the ideal solution for fast-moving conditions associated with natural disasters which require quick set up and the ability to handle huge traffic spikes. As a result, Pangea turned to Rackspace's cloud hosting solution, Cloud Sites, to instantly deploy software that provided much-needed information to the many victims of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike along the Gulf Coast in August of this year. The solution was simple, easy to set up and affordable, using a cost-effective, pay-as-you-grow pricing model which provided Pangea cost savings when site traffic was low.

Kristin Kuipers, Founder and Director of Programs at Pangea Foundation added, ''When we calculated the time saved by working with Rackspace's suite of hosting solution offerings, we discovered that we had achieved a 50 percent reduction in total cost of ownership compared to our previous hosting environment. The Cloud Hosting solution from Rackspace has proven to be a key contributor to our success, enabling us to deliver instantly scalable enterprise-class software and IT infrastructure solutions to non-profit organizations.''

Working with leading technology providers such as Rackspace, Qualcomm and Microsoft, Pangea will soon launch ReliefPoint, a web-based software solution that will be offered to disaster relief and crisis management organizations nationwide. Their vision is to transform a predominately ad-hoc, paper-based structure into a robust and infinitely scalable hosted solution that ensures these organizations are prepared to deal with the next disaster - before it happens.

Emil Sayegh, General Manager of Mosso, Rackspace's Cloud Hosting Division remarked, '''Nothing is more important to our Cloud Hosting Solution than providing the highest level of scalability for our customers' environments, when they most need them. Pangea's services have a time critical component to the local communities and the non-profits who serve them. Our systems are designed to scale whenever our customers, like Pangea Foundation, most need it to scale. It was very satisfying to also see our vision for an integrated IT hosting portfolio providing value to Pangea in their pursuit of such a noble cause.''

In 2000, The Federal Communications Commission reserved the 211 telephone number for information and referral to social- and human-services agencies. First launched by United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta in 1997, 211 is an easy to remember telephone number that connects people with important community services and volunteer opportunities. The implementation of 211 is being spearheaded by United Ways and information and referral agencies in more than 30 states and the District of Columbia. While services offered through 211 vary from community to community, 211 provides callers with information about and referrals to human services for every day needs and in times of crisis.

A 501(c)(3) nonprofit 'Software-as-a-Service' provider founded in 1996, Pangea Foundation is the leader in delivering Impact Visualization On Demand to nonprofits of all sizes. Backed by world-class teams of IT experts, security specialists, and technology partners, Pangea Foundation equips more than 1,500 impact-driven nonprofits across America with Web-based Software-as-a-Service that lets organizations clearly visualize and effortlessly communicate the impact of their programs. Nonprofits choose Pangea Foundation for its expertise in creating custom software that automatically fuses live program data with sophisticated visual analytics to deliver a real-time snapshot of their impact-anytime they want it. Through full-service implementation, unlimited support, and high availability IT services, Pangea Foundation delivers rapid time-to-value, flattens infrastructure and support costs, and improves nonprofit business continuity, enabling nonprofits to focus on their mission.

Mosso is the home of Cloud Sites, Cloud Files and Cloud Servers, providing enterprise-grade hosting and storage services. Mosso provides an easily managed interface so that developers, designers and IT managers can deploy reliable web applications quickly and easily as well as a high performance cloud-based storage service. Founded by two Rackspace employees, Mosso is built upon a cross platform, clustered-computing architecture.

Rackspace Hosting delivers computing-as-a-service, integrating the industry's best technologies into a flexible service offering, 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. Rackspace is recognized as one of FORTUNE Magazine's 100 Best companies to work for in the US, 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 the Pangea Foundation, please visit: www.pangeafoundation.org.

For more information about Mosso, please visit: www.mosso.com.

To learn more about Rackspace Managed Hosting, please visit: www.rackspace.com.

Tallahassee, Florida - (The Hosting News) - November 19, 2008 - Privately held technology corporation, Netphiles, a has developed a community-oriented web development grant program, designed to help deserving organizations throughout the Tallahassee area.

Mahmood Haq, President and CEO of Netphiles, Inc. remarked, ''Tallahassee has been good to us for the last ten years and Netphiles owes much of its success to the businesses and organizations in our community. This is our way of giving back.''

With Netphiles Cares, twice each year Netphiles will choose an organization worthy of receiving the web development donation. Netphiles will then assess the primary needs and goals of the organization to create a web presence that will best promote their mission and message.

Each organization awarded with the grant will receive custom website design, development, and hosting worth up to $5,000.

To kick off the program, Netphiles donated a newly redesigned website and hosting to Guardian Ad Litem and Child Advocates II, Inc, charitable organizations in Tallahassee created to aide children through the legal process. The website includes online donation capabilities and a volunteer resource center to help the organization?s 300 volunteers.

Jonathan Negrini, Senior Business Consultant at Netphiles added, ''The Netphiles Cares Grant was created not only to give back to our community, but to foster economic growth and development throughout the Big Bend region.''

Based in Tallahassee, Florida, Netphiles is a full-service web development company that helps businesses reach their full web potential through strategic consulting, web design, e-commerce, database integration, content management, systems integration, web marketing, and web hosting. Founded in 1999, and celebrating its 10th anniversary, Netphiles offers both business and technical expertise to help medium to large-size businesses achieve greater profitability and sales through the Internet.

To learn more about the Netphiles Cares Web Development Grant, please visit: www.netphiles.com.

Palo Alto, California - (The Hosting News) - November 19, 2008 - Virtualization solutions firm, VMware, Inc., is scheduled to participate in a key standards-setting body protecting payment cardholder data, in addition to launching an initiative to assist with creating retailer and partner compliant IT infrastructures.

By joining the PCI Security Standards Council, VMware will work with the council to evolve the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) and other payment card data protection standards. This will help those VMware customers in the retail industry who are required to meet these standards to remain compliant while leveraging VMware virtualization. VMware has also launched the VMware Compliance Center Web site, an initiative to help educate merchants and auditors about how to achieve, maintain and demonstrate compliance in virtual environments to meet a number of industry standards, including the PCI DSS.

Bob Russo, general manager of the PCI Security Standards Council remarked, ''The PCI Security Standards Council is committed to helping everyone involved in the payment chain protect consumer payment data. By participating in the standards setting process, VMware demonstrates it is playing an active part in this important end goal.''

The PCI DSS requires merchants and service providers that store, process or transmit customer payment card data to adhere to information security controls and processes that ensure data integrity. More information on the council and the standard can be found at www.pcisecuritystandards.org.

As a participating organization, VMware will now have access to the latest payment card security standards from the council, be able to provide feedback on the standards and become part of a growing community that now includes more than 500 organizations. In an era of increasingly sophisticated attacks on systems, adhering to the PCI DSS represents a significant aspect of an entity's protection against data criminals. By joining as a participating organization, VMware is adding its voice to the process.

Shekar Ayyar, Vice President of infrastructure alliances, VMware remarked, ''VMware recognizes the importance of compliance to our customers. We are pleased to join the council in order to help customers' virtualized environments comply with the PCI DSS and other security standards. By working with the council, we are enabling our retail customers to fully leverage the business benefits of virtualization. These include lower capital and operating costs, increased business continuity, strengthened security and improved energy efficiencies, which can all be achieved while enforcing current compliance standards.''

The VMware Compliance Center Web site provides an extensive listing of virtualization compliance solutions from VMware's technology partners; useful resources for companies, such as white papers and recorded webcasts; and case studies of companies that have successfully passed compliance audits in their VMware environments. The Web site is also useful for companies looking to meet other compliance standards, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

VMware's technology partners are working closely with VMware to provide integrated solutions that leverage virtualization to help customers meet compliance standards. Read what technology partners are saying about VMware's virtualization compliance efforts at www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/compliance_partner.html

The mission of the PCI Security Standards Council is to enhance payment account security by driving education and awareness of PCI security standards.

VMware (NYSE: VMW) provides virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2007 revenues of $1.3 billion, more than 120,000 customers and more than 20,000 partners. VMware is one of the fastest growing public software companies. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC).

For further information about PCI Security Standards Council, please visit: www.pcisecuritystandards.org.

To learn more about VMware, please visit: www.vmware.com.

November 19, 2008 -- ( <http://www.thewhir.com> WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Network-attached storage service provider Exanet has named NetApp veteran Mark Weiner president and chief executive officer, using his 15 years of experience in storage field to head the clustered NAS leading organization.