According to the last Netcraft report, the Domain registrars' expansion into web hosting has yielded strong results. The large registrars have been among the best performers thus far in 2005, according to our Hosting Provider Switching Analysis.

The strong growth for registrars reinforces the importance of domain names as a gateway to other web services, and has prompted hosting companies to feature domains more prominently in their business models, says the analysis.

In outlining progress between their two companies one year after their landmark agreement, Sun Microsystems Inc. Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy and Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer announced this week a series of measures to enhance product interoperability, including the development of new specifications that enable Web single sign-on (SSO) between systems that use Liberty and WS- Web service architectures.

The measures result from the broad 10-year technical collaboration agreement, announced in April 2004, that set the framework for increased cooperation between the companies to enable their products to work better together.

For the 4th time in succession, Akmin, the makers of SiteGalore and the leading provider of online website building software, achieves a rare distinction by passing KPMG's ISO 9001:2000 Quality Surveillance Audit without even a single minor or major non-conformity. 

Qwest Communications International Inc. (www.qwest.com) announced this week the commencement of an offer to exchange all of its privately placed outstanding 7.25 percent notes due 2011, 7.5 percent notes due 2014, and floating rate notes due 2009, for newly registered 7.25 percent notes due 2011, 7.5 percent notes due 2014 and floating rate notes due 2009, (together the "QCII notes"), respectively.

Sprint (www.sprint.com) and Nextel Communications, Inc. (www.nextel.com) announced that their boards of directors have unanimously approved a definitive agreement for a merger of equals.

The combination will create America's premier communications company -- a leading wireless carrier augmented by a global IP network that will offer consumer, business and government customers compelling new broadband wireless and integrated communications services.

Sprint and Nextel currently have a combined total equity value of approximately $70 billion and serve more than 35 million wireless subscribers on their networks and 5 million additional subscribers through affiliates and partners. 

Hosting ZOOM (www.hostingzoom.com), a provider of web hosting services, has introduced RAID 1 disk configurations on all new servers to ensure data integrity. RAID 1 disk mirroring protects from loss of data and is exceptionally fault-tolerant. 

Copyright © 2008 DevStart, Inc. Permission is required to use the material on this page.