2012 press releases

London – 16 May 2012 – Host Europe Group, the largest privately owned hosting group in Europe (offering leading domains, web hosting, cloud hosting and managed hosting products and services) has today announced the acquisition of Mesh Digital. The strategic move, which sees Host Europe significantly strengthening its domain management portfolio and platform, is a natural progression for the two businesses which have been working closely together for several years.

Mesh Digital – trading as Domainmonster.com and Domainbox.com – has for some time been providing back-end domain registration and value-added services for the Host Europe Group. With an excellent reputation in the sector and a clear focus on the domain name industry, Mesh Digital was the perfect brand fit for Host Europe Group as it expands internationally. The acquisition affords Host Europe Group ownership of Domainbox.com, the innovative reseller platform developed by Mesh Digital. Domainbox.com is the most modern domain platform available in the market today, and supports more than 100 top level domains, whilst processing in excess of one million API (application programming interface) calls a day. Host Europe Group will be in the unique position of being able to centralise its domain operations, benefiting from fast integrations with a vast network of Domain Registries and value add suppliers that Domainbox already supports. At the same time, Mesh Digital customers will now have access to a larger selection of competitive products and services including VPS, dedicated servers and advanced email solutions.

Matt Mansell, Founder and Chief Executive of Mesh Digital, will take on the role as ‘Head of Domain Strategy’ within the Host Europe Group, and he, along with his team, will be responsible for managing the Groups’ domain portfolio and strategy, whilst continuing the innovation of the Domainbox.com product.

Thomas Vollrath, CEO of the Host Europe Group, said: “We have worked closely with the Mesh Digital team for some time now and the two companies’ share a similar vision, passion and commitment to our customers. We took the strategic decision to acquire Mesh because the company is very well respected in the industry, and is renowned for its cutting-edge innovation. What’s more, being able to offer platforms such as Domainbox.com across our group puts us in an increasingly competitive position, and means we can offer a far greater range of products to our customers. Our combined businesses are a natural fit, providing complementary products and services that help to strengthen the buying power for Host Europe Group overall.”

Matt Mansell, continued; “The fit here is nothing short of perfect. Host Europe Group is an established customer of ours on our Domainbox.com wholesale product and I see enormous potential for us both as a combined business.

“Both parties bring with them a vast and fresh base of technology that is unique within our industry. It’s an extremely exciting time to be within the domain industry right now and with a group domain portfolio that will exceed five million domains under management, we can carve a clear and decisive strategy for our brands that will allow us to keep innovating above the bar for our collective customers.”

About Host Europe Group
Founded in 1997, the Host Europe Group is the largest privately-owned hosting group in Europe. It manages in excess of 5 million domains, and offers more than 1 million customers mass, customised, managed and cloud web hosting alongside multiple cloud based software applications. As the biggest domain registrar in the UK, and largest virtualisation provider in Europe, Host Europe Group is the default choice for businesses seeking high quality service, with first rate performance, at a competitive price. With its leading brands: 123-reg, Webfusion, Heart Internet and Host Europe, the Group has a market leading presence in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain.

About Mesh Digital
Mesh Digital has rapidly grown to become a Top 30 fastest growing ICANN accredited registrar. Operating two major domain brands, Mesh is well known to its retail customers through its Domainmonster.com brand. A top 3 performer in all major domain launches in the past three years, Domainmonster.com has earned its fast growth, now trading as a round the clock operation in Dollars, Sterling and Euros in 133 different countries.

With a lightning fast Application Programming Interface (API) at its core, Domainbox.com is Mesh Digital’s wholesale offering. A comprehensive and innovate wholesale offering for Domains, Email & SSL, Domainbox is now handling in excess of 1 million API calls a day across its diverse network of resellers.

www.meshdigital.com

9th April 2012: In a move set to revolutionise the way its customers use webmail and manage personal and business email online, the UK’s number one domain registrar, 123-reg, has today announced an innovative partnership with Open-Xchange, the leading supplier of SaaS based business-class email for cloud providers.

The partnership is set to benefit 123-reg’s 500,000+ professional and business clients by consolidating its existing webmail solutions, such as @mail, Horde and Squirrel mail and replacing them with AJAX-based Open-Xchange webmail.  The product  is not only the most powerful email service available on the market, but includes integrated email, calendar and contact management features as well as more advanced collaboration functionality for small businesses and mobile synchronisation  upgrades.

Thomas Vollrath, CEO of 123-reg commented:  “We believe Open-Xchange is a market leader and the ideal partner for us to start offering Cloud applications.  Its software integrates well with our existing hosting infrastructure and allows us to offer new premium features to our customers, including amalgamation of all contacts and integration of message feeds from a number of platforms. Its ‘in-app’ upsell concept also makes it a more compelling offering for business users. ”

“Communication and collaboration are leading the way for the adoption of  Cloud applications within SOHOs (small office and home office) and SMEs (small – and medium-size businesses),” said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. “As email and shared webhosting become a commodity, communication services and business applications based on Open-Xchange provide a great opportunity to offer customers value-added services.”

Open-Xchange integrates easily into existing infrastructures without the need to install software and can be accessed from any internet connection and through all common browsers including Firefox and Google Chrome.  Personalised to the user’s domain name, it has advanced groupware features such as information management and document sharing, along with cutting-edge social network integration.  The Open-Xchange mobility capability can also be added so they can receive push e-mail, while synchronising contacts, calendars and other information straight to their smartphones.

Users can also benefit from the “Social OX” features, which allow any existing webmail accounts to be consolidated into a folder within Open-Xchange for easy management. Contact details from social network platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn, can be automatically added to the Open-Xchange address book and users can also merge their calendar and address books from Google for ease of use.  Additionally, all Facebook and Twitter messaging feeds can be integrated so they can be viewed in one place.  Ultimately, Open-Xchange offers a superior, easy-to -use webmail service which helps users become better organised.

The 123-mail service is available from as little as 99p a month. For further information please visit

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/email-hosting/

About 123-reg

123-reg is the UK’s leading domain registrar, registering every third .uk domain. It is a market leader in domain name registration (3 million domains in the UK) and web hosting solutions. With unrivalled industry expertise, it is able to offer high-quality, technically-advanced yet cost-effective products to its large contingent of customers. 123-reg is part of the Host Europe Group, the largest privately-owned hosting company in Europe, and a Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 company. The Group also includes Webfusion, Heart Internet, Host Europe, dynamic-net AG and RedCoruna, each making every step of setting up online as easy as 1, 2, 3.

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UK web hosting firm Heart Internet has announced the launch of SiteDesigner, their brand new website builder software giving customers the ability to design, publish and manage their website without any writing any code.

According to Heart Internet, SiteDesigner has been created to scale depending on the user’s knowledge and requirements. Beginners with no technical knowledge can use drag and drop tools to create a website quickly and easily, whereas experienced web designers can utilise advanced tools to speed up the process of building a website.

Starting at £5.99 per month, the software comes with web hosting included and over a hundred professionally designed templates for customers to customise to their own requirements using the drag and drop interface. Advanced features include direct access to the HTML and CSS, ecommerce functionality plus built in scripts such as contact forms, maps, social media widgets and image galleries. Heart Internet reseller customers are also being given the ability to sell SiteDesigner to their clients along with a 25% discount on the monthly price.

“We believe SiteDesigner is a major step forward for online web builder products” said Heart Internet director Jonathan Brealey. “Every pixel can be customised to the customer’s needs, and the easy to use drag and drop system makes building a beautiful website a reality for non-designers. Additionally, SiteDesigner can be used by professional website designers to speed up how long it takes to launch a great looking website.”

For more information visit: http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/website-builder/

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About Heart Internet:
Heart Internet is one of the UK’s leading web hosting and reseller hosting companies. Heart Internet is a top 5 UK host in terms of TLD domains hosted (Source: www.webhosting.info) and was named the “Best reseller web host” in the 2011 about.com awards.

Costa Rica, 14th March 2012: The UK’s largest domain registrar, 123-reg has today announced at the Costa Rica ICANN conference that it has formed a partnership with CloudNames.com to offer prospective customers the opportunity to purchase its own unique generic top level domain (gTLD). This means companies can pre-order the url of their choice to represent their brand.

The launch of gTLD comes into effect in 2013, whereby any gTLDs applied for now will become live domain name extensions. For example, location-based websites can purchase .london or .nyc to present their services, or retailers can name their sites .food or .fashion. This new break-through is expected to have an enormous impact on brands’ marketing strategies and search engine optimisation. Through the partnership with CloudNames, brands can validate and apply for their new gTLD to protect their company’s name on the web to ensure against fraud and guarantee maximum visibility.

Thomas Vollrath, chief executive, 123-reg comments: “The prospect of purchasing your own bespoke, individual domain extension is a milestone for the industry, and offers a wealth of opportunities for raising brand awareness, building trust and increasing revenue. We welcome this partnership with CloudNames.com to be able to offer this to our customers, securing our position as the leading domain registrar for companies, both small and large. I believe these highly marketable generic top level domains are the next big thing in domains and it’s great to be involved right from the start.”

Rolf Larsen, chief executive, CloudNames adds: “This is an exciting time for the industry, and we’re pleased to be teaming up with 123-reg to offer this service in the UK. Companies have an excellent opportunity to ensure they stand out from their competitors with a memorable, relevant domain name, and we urge businesses to register now so they don’t miss out.”

Users have until 29th March to register with CloudNames and ICANN. A full list of new gTLDs will be published on 1st May, named ‘Reveal Day’. For full details, set up costs and to search for your ideal .brand name please click here. New gTLDS are a ten year commitment and the ICANN application fee costs $185,000.

For full details, set up costs and to search for your ideal .brand name please click here.

About 123-reg
123-reg is the UK’s leading domain registrar, registering every third .uk domain. It is a market leader in domain name registration (3 million domains in the UK) and web hosting solutions. With unrivalled industry expertise, it is able to offer high-quality, technically-advanced yet cost-effective products to its large contingent of customers. 123-reg is part of the Host Europe Group, the largest privately-owned hosting company in Europe, and a Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 company. The Group also includes Webfusion, Heart Internet, Host Europe, dynamic-net AG and RedCoruna, each making every step of setting up online as easy as 1, 2, 3.

About CloudNames
CloudNames (www.cloudnames.com) provides a turnkey solution for brand owners who wish to own a top-level domain (TLD). Brand owners can outsource responsibilities and tasks related to applying for and operating a TLD to CloudNames. CloudNames offer gTLD name and validation/search tool, self-service gTLD application service, and a Managed Registry Office. The company is headquartered in Oslo and has presence in Europe, USA and Asia.

5 March 2012: The Raspberry Pi Foundation, an innovative charitable organisation established to teach youngsters and adults how to program computers will from this week welcome hosting support from Webfusion, one of the UK’s leading web hosting groups.

The overall goal of the Foundation is to improve the quality and quantity of computer science graduates and engineers in the UK. For just $35 (£22), young people and hobbyists are provided with a fully-functional computer, featuring an ARM processor and a GPU, known as a Raspberry Pi, to program.

Since its establishment in May 2011 the popularity of the charity has grown phenomenally. To help cope with the massive demand for downloads of operating system images for the device, Webfusion is providing complimentary managed hosting to the foundation.

Eben Upton, Executive Director of Raspberry Pi Foundation, said: “Despite the fact more people now use PCs, Macs, tablets, smartphones and games consoles, youngsters are no longer exposed to programmable home computers as I and my colleagues were back in the 1980s. This has meant, steadily, the quantity and experience level of students joining universities to read computer science has significantly dropped.

“Now thanks to Raspberry Pi and with the support of invaluable partners such as Webfusion, students and hobbyists now have a device to practice on before they enter further education. As this popularity continues to grow along with our traffic, this incredibly generous managed hosting package will ensure we do not falter along the way.”

Thomas Vollrath, CEO of Webfusion, added: “Eben and his team at the foundation are filling a very real void in the technology industry. We take our corporate social responsibility very seriously, especially when it comes to helping upskill and train the ICT recruits of tomorrow. That is why we are happy to be supporting such a forward-thinking organisation and wish Raspberry Pi every success in the future.”

About Webfusion
Established in 1997, Webfusion is one of the UK’s leading web hosting groups. Offering cost-effective, feature-rich hosting packages for its diverse customer base – including everyone from web developers, designers and hobbyists to businesses with complex e-commerce operations – its customers benefit from market-leading security and service. Features include: 24/7 technical support; managed and cloud hosting; robust Firewall server protection; one click installation; access to FTP accounts and a state-of-the-art data centre.

Webfusion is also part of the Host Europe Group, the largest privately-owned hosting company in Europe, and a Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 company. With 4.5 million domains in the group portfolio and over 1 million customers, the Host Europe Group also includes 123-reg, Heart Internet, Host Europe, RedCoruna and dynamic-net AG, and has a strong International market presence in the US, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain.

24th February 2012: Host Europe Group – the largest privately owned hosting group in Europe – has today announced that it has partnered with website security services provider – StopTheHacker – to offer its SaaS website security services throughout Europe. Host Europe Group will roll out StopTheHacker’s comprehensive suite of web protection services across all of its companies – with Heart Internet – its UK reseller hosting company – being the first in the Group to launch with it.

This will be closely followed by a roll out across other Group companies – including its UK market leading brands of 123-reg and Webfusion, along with Host Europe in Germany. Globally the Host Europe Group manages close to 4.5 million domains, has 1 million customers and is expanding internationally. It delivers domain registration, mass hosting, customised managed hosting, cloud hosting and an emerging software-as-a-service offering, to its growing customer base.

Speaking of the partnership, Thomas Vollrath, CEO of the Host Europe Group said:

“We chose to partner with StopTheHacker because we like the fact that their service is unique in that it is designed for website owners and website providers, rather than for individual computers. Where this becomes important is around the growing number of malware attacks, which can be severe in terms of increased support costs, damaged reputation, increased churn and lost revenues. StopTheHacker’s suite of services helps catch more malware than other solutions on the market, and we feel this will be of great interest and value to our customers who need more than ever to protect their online reputation”.

“This is our largest strategic partnership in the European web hosting market to date,” said Peter Jensen, CEO of StopTheHacker. “The Host Europe Group has a growing reputation for delivering cutting-edge hosting services to their customer base. We believe our web healthcare services will be of significant interest to all businesses whose reputation and profitability depends on maintaining a malware-free website.

About StopTheHacker
StopTheHacker is a highly focused website security service company, providing SaaS services to web hosters, website owners, administrators and web designers to help them detect and recover from malware attacks. Stop The Hacker’s technology, supported by the National Science Foundation, has won multiple awards since 2009. StopTheHacker serves customers all over the globe, protecting their online presence from emerging threats. More information is available at www.stopthehacker.com, http://twitter.com/stopthehacker and http://www.facebook.com/stopthehacker

About Host Europe Group
Founded in 1997, Host Europe Group is the largest privately-owned hosting Group in Europe. It has registered close to 4.5 million domains and offers its 1 million customers mass hosting, customised, managed and cloud hosting, and has an emerging software-as-a-service offering. As the biggest domain registrar in the UK, and largest virtualisation provider in Europe, Host Europe Group is the ideal choice for consumers and businesses alike, who seek a high quality of service, with first rate performance at a competitive price. With its leading brands: 123-reg, Webfusion, Heart Internet, Host Europe, RedCoruna and dynamic-net AG the Group has a strong market presence in the UK, US, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain.

Webfusion Charity Initiative raises £1,000 for Surrey Lifelong Learning Partnership
‘Christmas giving’ was the theme at leading web hosting group, Webfusion during December, when it ran a charity initiative leading to £1,000 being raised for educational body the Surrey Lifelong Learning Partnership.

Webfusion donated £1 from each of its server sales in the month of December towards the charity’s ‘Digital Citizens Project’ that helps the disadvantaged and vulnerable get online.
Kevin Delf, Chief Executive of the charity commented: “We are very grateful for this generous donation in support of our work. For many, developing their IT skills is a tremendous boost to their confidence and their interest in learning more. Quite simply it can be life changing.”

Thomas Vollrath, Chief Executive of Webfusion added: “We were delighted to get involved with the charity because we share mutual goals, and here at Webfusion we are keen to encourage people to get online. The charity covers the community in Surrey, which is local to our UK headquarters, and we wanted to work with someone we can build a longer term relationship with. As such we hope we can work together with the Surrey Lifelong Learning Partnership at some point in the future.”

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For further press information please contact Victoria Harris or Georgina Dunkley at Punch Communications on +44 (0) 1858 411 600 or email victoria.harris@punchcomms.com or georgina.dunkley@punchcomms.com

A recent survey* found that the number of new businesses created in 2011 hit a record high, and as a result, the scramble for the best website names is likely to be more competitive than ever before. The UK’s leading domain registrar, 123-reg, has a service available to ensure entrepreneurs don’t miss out on their ideal website address for their business: domain backordering.

123-reg offers a domain backordering service whereby it monitors a particular domain name on behalf of a customer to ensure the url can be snapped up when it expires. The service saves customers significant time and inconvenience, and as only one backorder per domain can be accepted, it guarantees your best chance of snapping up your dream domain name. However, in the exceptional case that someone else has purchased the domain name, 123-reg will continue to monitor it until it next expires, at no additional cost.

Unlike some domain backordering services, 123-reg offers a straightforward fixed payment structure, and does not charge inflated prices for particularly sought-after domains. The registration fee starts at £24.99 for domain names including those ending .com, .net and .co.uk whilst more exclusive domain names such as those ending .tv will cost £34.99. In addition an administration fee of only £9.99 also applies. On successful acquisition, the chosen domain name will be registered for one or two years depending on its extension.

Thomas Vollrath, CEO of 123-reg comments: “As more and more people are pursuing the route of self-employment, getting your company and website name right is vital, and it can be extremely disappointing to discover your chosen domain has been taken already. Competition for names is high and it’s often hard to predict the exact time certain domains will become available. With this service, 123-reg removes all the inconvenience of regularly monitoring the domain, by doing so on your behalf at a reasonable price, so you can have peace of mind that you won’t miss out again.”

For further information on the domain backordering service from 123-reg please visit
http://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/backorder.shtml
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For more press information please contact Victoria Harris or Georgina Dunkley at Punch Communications victoria.harris@punchcomms.com or georgina.dunkley@punchcomms.com or +44 (0) 1858 411600.

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*Barclays, December 2011

London – 23rd January 2012 – Host Europe Group, the leading privately owned hosting group, which incorporates 123-reg, Host Europe, Heart Internet and Webfusion, has today announced the acquisition of RedCoruna, one of Spain’s leading web hosting and domain registry companies.

With its impressive year-on-year growth for the past three years and excellent reputation for shared hosting and domain registry services, RedCoruna is a perfect brand fit for Host Europe Group as it looks to expand its European and global reach, and with particular emphasis on Spain as a key market for growth.
RedCoruna customers will now have access to a larger selection of products and services, previously unavailable to them, including VPS, reseller hosting, Cloud hosting, dedicated servers, new domain extensions, and advanced email services.

Sharing the same cultural values as the Host Europe Group, RedCoruna’s dynamic and customer-focused approach to web hosting ensured it was a very appealing proposition. No redundancies will be made as part of the acquisition and Luis Veiga, Founder of RedCoruna will take on the role as country manager for the Spanish market.

Commenting Thomas Vollrath, CEO of the Host Europe Group, said:
“We have been impressed with the steady growth of the RedCoruna brand. With low churn and high levels of customer satisfaction, it has a customer-centric approach to business retention and development. This energy, coupled with a strong track record in web hosting in Spain, makes RedCoruna an extremely welcome addition to the Host Europe Group.”

Luis Veiga Founder of RedCoruna, added:
“This is an exciting chapter in RedCoruna’s history as we join one of Europe’s leading hosting groups. Together, we will certainly make waves in the Spanish hosting industry and our customers will continue to enjoy a first class offering, but now with a larger selection of products and services at the most competitive prices in Europe.”

About Host Europe Group

Founded in 1997, Host Europe Group is the largest privately-owned hosting group in Europe. It has registered over 4million domains and offers its 1m customers mass hosting, customised, managed and cloud hosting, and has an emerging software-as-a-service offering. As the biggest domain registrar in the UK, and largest virtualisation provider in Europe, Host Europe Group is the ideal choice for consumers and businesses alike, who seek a high quality of service, with first rate performance at a competitive price. With its leading brands: 123-reg, Webfusion, Heart Internet, Host Europe, and dynamic-net AG the Group has a strong market presence in the UK, US, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain.

About RedCoruna

RedCoruna is one of the top ten leading hosting companies in Spain. It currently manages more than 100,000 domains and has more than 20,000 customers. Established in 2002, it offers impeccable levels of service and support, and is a leading provider of shared web hosting, domain management, email and server solutions. www.redcoruna.com

123-reg, the UK’s largest domain registrar, has launched a ground-breaking new Virtual Private Server (VPS) product range, ideal for people looking for power, flexibility and control, at a sensible price. This new high performance product allows customers to take full control of their own websites’ performance in real time. Available to buy from January 2012, it comes with a unique launch offer that gives customers the chance to buy Windows VPS at prices that are cheaper than Linux.

A Virtual Private Server acts in the same way as a regular server but offers more freedom and control than a shared hosting package, with the power and adaptability of a dedicated server, yet without the additional expense. The new range from 123-reg has the added advantage of flexibility: customers can customise their VPS specifications at any time, adding more resources when they need it, and can amend specifications easily according to their own usage. The VPS service from 123-reg offers unrivalled choice and simplicity. Customers can choose between Plesk or cPanel control panel as standard. Each VPS comes with unmetered bandwidth, IP address and no minimum contract period.

In addition, customer relations is a primary focus for 123-reg, with 24/7 hardware monitoring by specialist technicians based within its UK data centre. Principally, this product is leading the industry by offering exceptional value for money, with Windows VPS available from just £9.99 a month and as such, significantly cheaper than a Linux VPS. Its flexible payment structure allows customers to set up an annual or monthly account, so any up-grading of specifications can be easily implemented.

Thomas Vollrath, CEO of 123-reg comments: “We are committed to listening to the needs of our customers, and that is why we are offering this brand new VPS service at such an unbeatable price. This service puts the control back in the hands of our customers, giving them the ability to amend the product to meet their own personal specifications, and aligned with the compelling launch offer of Windows being more competitively priced than Linux, we are therefore ensuring our VPS package offers the best value in the market.”

For further information regarding the new VPS Server range from 123-reg please go to http://www.123-reg.co.uk/vps-hosting/

For more press information please contact Victoria Harris or Georgina Dunkley at Punch Communications victoria.harris@punchcomms.com or georgina.dunkley@punchcomms.com or +44 (0) 1858 411600.