iWeb Communities: Blog

You might have heard that iWeb was rebuilding its website. What’s planned is a new design, new products, new offers… well, almost everything is new.

Just to tease you and to put some pressure on ourselves in order to accelerate the completion of the site, we will present, until the grand opening, a weekly screen shot of the site featuring a sample of a new product.

Let’s begin with Mac servers. Yes, from March 2008, iWeb will offer the possibility to get Mac Mini as dedicated servers.

Packaged with up to 2000GB of traffic and a remote reboot port it has everything you need for a rocking web presence. Use it as a web server, mail server, dns server, mySQL server or even as a Ruby on Rails development server with the new Leopard OS built in Rails.

Make it your backup server for your important files, a fully loaded web hosting server with iTools, an instant messaging server with Jabber, a Quicktime streaming server, a DNS server with or anything else you can think of. The server version of Leopard even supports everything you need to develop Apache 2, Ruby on Rails, Tomcat 5, Java VM and WebObjects 5.4 out of the box!

The price structure of Mac servers needs to be confirmed, but the price should be fixed between 119$ and 149$ per month. Be in the five first persons to pre-order a Mac Mini and get a 25% rebate ! Contact our sales department at this email address to benefit from this great deal.

MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC, February 4, 2008 iWeb Group Inc. (TSX-V: IWB) (iWeb or the Company), a worldwide internet hosting infrastructure provider, today announced that it has increased its existing lending facility with the Bank of Montreal (BMO). The existing term loans facility, which was for $1.5 million, has been increased by $1 million, bringing the total credit available with the BMO to $2.5 million.

iWeb intends to use this loan facility to fund servers to be integrated in phase three of the installation of the Company’s second data center. This investment in servers and other necessary IT infrastructure will continue expanding the company’s dedicated hosting service offering.
The facility is available in term loans, bearing interest at the banks prime lending rate plus 2.5% and payable in monthly installments over a period of three years.

About iWeb Group Inc.
Founded in 1996, iWeb offers a full line of advanced IP hosting services either through shared hosting, dedicated servers or co-location in three data centers, featuring over 52,000 square feet of floor space and the latest technological equipment. iWeb provides services in English, French and Spanish to clients in more than 130 countries. For more information, please visit www.sedar.com or the Company?s website at www.iweb8.com.

Caution concerning forward-looking statements
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or iWeb?s future economic performance and reflect the current assumptions and expectations of management. Certain unknown factors may affect the events, economic performance and results of operations. iWeb undertakes no obligation, and does not intend to, update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable law.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
For more information

Marc Guindon
Groupe iWeb Inc.
Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer
(514) 286-4242 ext. 121
mg@iweb.com

Kristen Dickson
The Equicom Group Inc.
Investor Relations
(416) 815-0700 ext. 273
kdickson@equicomgroup.com

Human beings always find a way to transform what’s not so cute in something beautiful, even when computer hardware is the subject. Not that Ethernet cables, switches , and other stuff on which the Internet is spreading are ugly, but no one would compare these with Van Gogh’s paintings. However, some persevering people saw an opportunity to release the artistic side of the machine.

It’s the case of Chris Harrison, student at Carnegie Mellon University, who had fun building graphical representations of usually intangible phenomenons. He has produced a map of interconnections between Wikipedia’s categories, a visualization of the bible, a graph showing global internet trends, and a world map of city-to-city internet connexions.

In this last case, Harrison used datas from the DIMES project in order to release a cute graphical representation on which we can see interconnections between cities of the world by router configurations (note that the internet still seem to be a Western thing) :

On the other side, Pingdom magazine regrouped some photographs of network cables arrangements made by techies with an artistic side :

At iWeb, we are not really cable artists, but we’re still organized…

Who said the web hosting industry was just rational and mathematical ?

It seems that talking about iWeb in the medias is highly fashionable these days. It has probably something to do with the growth the company experienced in 2007 which place it in good position as for the small and middle size businesses from Québec. This time, it’s in the winter edition of PME Magazine. The magazine puts iWeb in good position in its top 25 of public companies :
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Sun Microsystems, a provider of network computing infrastructure solutions, has just announced the acquisition of MySQL AB, the company behind the popular open source database system MySQL, for about 1 billion dollars (800 million cash, and 200 million in options).

The wedding between these two players in the open source world is a “perfect match” says Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s CEO : “Today’s acquisition reaffirms Sun’s position at the center of the global Web economy. Supporting our overall growth plan, acquiring MySQL amplifies our investments in the technologies demanded by those driving extreme growth and efficiency, from Internet media titans to the world’s largest traditional enterprises”, he explains.

If MySQL is an important part of the “LAMP” (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) power foursome which is behind most open source online application software, it also powers many large applications such as Facebook, Baidu, and Google. There are other systems like PostgreSQL which is gaining in popularity, but the competition comes mostly from SQL Server by Microsoft (a proprietary software), and from Oracle, generally used for more complex systems.

What does all this mean for iWeb and its customers? Not much for now, but we will follow this new giant’s development with great interest.

In an article in “La Presse”, one of Montreal’s biggest daily newspapers, iWeb was named one of the “Five companies in Quebec to watch in the stock market in 2008“. In the article, journalist Maxime Bergeron reccomends that investors look beyond traditional investments such as oil or gold. He describes iWeb as “working in an obscure and not-so-glamorous sector”. We tend to disagree with the “not-so-glamorous” tag, there are some iWeb employees who were born to walk the red carpet…

Glamour aside, Luc Grenier, a broker from Industrielle Alliance interviewed by La Presse says that the web hosting market is in rapid expansion: “it’s a really strong trend in the industry; companies are subcontracting their servers”.

The article goes on to note that iWeb’s income increased by 71% in 2007, with a total revenue of $9.8 million, and that iWeb’s stock had the 8th biggest increase for a Quebec company on the Toronto Stock exchange in 2007, with gains of 108%.

We will be working hard in 2008 to post even better results!

Photo : nodomain.cc (Flickr)

iWeb has been named ‘Most Reliable Hosting Company’ for December 2007 by Netcraft.com. Performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from separate points around the Internet, and give customers an indication of the reliability of routing. For the entire month of December, iWeb’s servers were always up and there were no failed requests.

This marks the 4th time that iWeb has earned ‘Most Reliable’ in 2007.

The performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from separate points around the Internet, and give customers an indication of the reliability of routing.

You can obtain more information about Netcraft?s rankings and consult the complete list on their website.

iWeb was named “Top Web Hosting Provider” for the month of January 2008 by TopHosts.com. TopHosts had also named iWeb as best host for october 2007. The rankings are based on the quality of customer service, the variety of offers, and innovative approaches in marketing.

According to iWeb’s CEO Éric Chouinard, “It is always an honour to receive such an award. We will continue to work on improving our services in order to continually surpass ourselves. We had a great year and are planning to continue on this path for 2008, so stay tuned.”

More details are available on TopHosts’ website.

SWsoft, maker of the well-known Plesk control panel, has just announced the acquisition of its British competitor WebHost Automation Ltd, creator of Helm, a control panel for Windows. SWsoft’s goal is to offer a wider variety of products to its customers and to invest the British and South-American markets. It seems SWsoft is positioning itself to better compete cPanel which has recently announced for 2008 a Windows version of its control panel. SWsoft and WebHost Automation Ltd tools are both offered by iWeb.

The American company, which had bought the Ensim Pro product line last September, has already announced it would continue to support the Helm control Panel, which implies that iWeb will continue to offer and support Helm.

You can take a look at SWsoft’s press release on their website.

It’s not the first time (and should not be the last) that it happens, but it always gives great satisfaction to learn that iWeb has made Netcraft’s top ten of reliable web hosts. For the month of november, our datacenters had no outage, and failed a tiny 0.03% of requests.

Netcraft is known as a reference in terms of reliability measurement for web hosts. The firm uses many performance collectors to compile datas for all registered hosts. Last july, iWeb reached the top of the chart for a third time this year.

You can obtain more informations about Netcraft’s rankings and consult the whole list on their website.

In order to preserve our reputation for the quality of our customer service, iWeb Technologies is now announcing the improvement of our evening, night, and weekend customer service (Quebec time).

In addition to our 24 hour phone and email service, you will now be able to contact our customer service team via Live Chat. Furthermore, we have greatly improved our nightly phone service and shortened the response time for weekend requests. Our team is always there to help you, whether it’s for first level technical support, invoicing information, follow up of email requests, or any other kind of information about our services that you might require.
Since it is an important change, do not hesitate to send us your comments and suggestions so we can continue to improve our service. We are continuing to invest in the quality of our customer service and are hoping that you will take advantage of it.

We invite you to contact us at any time, day or night, via Live Chat, by phone at +1(514) 286-4242, or at any of our free of charge international numbers.

The end of the year is always a time for appraisal, and iWeb is no exception. The company has just released its financial results for 2007.

Among the highlights was a 71% increase in revenue compared to last year, for a total of $9.8 million (CDN). You can see more details about the financial report in the complete press release. If you are feeling a little lazy, you can just check these striking facts :
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Organic growth drives 71% increase in revenue and more than 93% improvement in EBITDA

MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC December 17, 2007 ? iWeb Group Inc. (TSX-V: IWB) (?iWeb? or the ?Company?), a worldwide internet hosting infrastructure provider, announces its financial results for the three-month period and year ended September 30, 2007. All results are reported in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated.

Fiscal 2007 Summary

• - Revenue of $9.8 million, a 71% increase over fiscal 2006
• - Gross profit margin of 57%, compared to 54% in fiscal 2006
• - Adjusted EBITDA* (as defined at the end of this release) of $2.8 million, compared to $1.5 million in fiscal 2006
• - Earnings before income tax of $0.9 million, compared to $0.7 million in fiscal 2006
• - Net earnings of $0.5 million, or $0.02 per share, in-line with $0.5 million, or $0.02 per share in fiscal 2006
• - Obtained TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) Tier 1 Issuer status
• - Company shares qualified for SMB Growth Stock Plan (ACCRO)
• - Subsequent to year end, announced plans to open an 850 cabinet co-location data centre in Montreal
• - Subsequent to year end, closed $4.1 million public offering, with net proceeds to primarily fund the third and fourth phase installation of the Company?s second data centre

?Our strong fiscal 2007 performance reflects the passion and dedication of the entire iWeb team and demonstrates our ability to successfully capitalize on the robust demand in the Internet infrastructure market,? said Eric Chouinard, President and CEO iWeb. ?We delivered significant organic revenue and EBITDA growth, and, in the second half of the year, we completed the installation of phase two of our second data centre, which expanded our dedicated and co-location hosting capacity. Longer-term, with the build-out of phase three and four of our second data centre already in construction, our third data centre scheduled to open in the beginning of 2008 and a team that is now more than 80 strong people, we believe we are well positioned to continue our growth momentum.?

Fiscal 2007 Financial Review

Total revenue for fiscal 2007 was $9.8 million, an increase of 71% over revenue of $5.8 million in fiscal 2006. iWeb?s year-over-year revenue improvement was driven solely by organic sales growth. For fiscal 2007, iWeb generated 80% of revenue from dedicated hosting, while shared hosting and co-location hosting each accounted for 10% of the Company?s revenue for the year. Revenue for Q4 fiscal 2007 was $3.0 million, a 74% increase over revenue of $1.7 million for Q4 fiscal 2006.

For fiscal 2007, gross profit margin was 57%, compared to 54% in fiscal 2006. The year-over-year improvement reflects increased sales volume and improved cost controls.
Total operating expenses in fiscal 2007 were $4.7 million, or 48% of revenue, compared to $2.5 million, or 43% of revenue in fiscal 2006. During fiscal 2007, iWeb increased its investment in sales and marketing and incurred higher administrative expenses in support of the Company?s current and future growth.

iWeb generated Adjusted EBITDA of $2.8 million, or 29% of revenue in fiscal 2007, compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $1.5 million, or 25% of revenue in fiscal 2006. The combination of higher revenue performance and tighter cost controls led to the year-over-year improvement.

For fiscal 2007, net earnings were $0.5 million, or $0.02 per share, relatively in-line with $0.5 million, or $0.02 million per share for fiscal 2006. Net earnings for Q4 fiscal 2007 was $0.2 million, or $0.01 per share, compared to $0.1 million, or $0.00 per share for Q4 fiscal 2006.

During fiscal 2007, iWeb invested significantly in the infrastructure required to support its growth throughout the year and into the future. As a result, the Company incurred a year-over-year doubling in amortization expense and added approximately $0.5 million in interest expense, which was driven by the Company?s increased level of debt. In addition, as 70% of the Company?s revenue is denominated in U.S. dollars, the reduction in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to the Canadian dollar during fiscal 2007 negatively impacted net earnings by a difference of approximately $0.1 million for the year. Finally, income tax expenses were lower in fiscal 2006 compared to fiscal 2007, since the Company recognized future tax assets of approximately $0.1 million during fiscal 2006.

Subsequent Events

On October 2, iWeb announced plans to open an 850 cabinet equivalent co-location data centre. Scheduled to open in the first quarter of calendar year 2008, the facility will be the Company?s third data centre in Montreal. As iWeb?s two other data centres are both primarily dedicated server hosting facilities, management believes the addition of a strictly co-location hosting data centre will enable the Company to diversify its revenue base, extend its footprint in the Montreal marketplace and target a broader customer base.

On November 30, iWeb closed a public offering of 3.3 million common shares at a price of $1.25 per common share, for gross proceeds of $4.1 million. iWeb intends to use the net proceeds of the offering primarily to fund phases three and four of the installation of its second data centre.

Selected Financial Information

A full set of financial statements and MD&A for iWeb will be available at www.iweb8.com and at www.sedar.com.

* The Company defines Adjusted EBITDA as Earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation and amortization, stock based compensation.

About iWeb Group Inc.

Founded in 1996, iWeb offers a full line of advanced IP hosting services either through shared hosting, dedicated servers or co-location in three data centers, featuring over 52,000 square feet of floor space and the latest technological equipment. iWeb provides services in English, French and Spanish to clients in more than 130 countries. For more information, please visit www.sedar.com or the Company?s website at www.iweb8.com.

Caution concerning forward-looking statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or iWeb?s future economic performance and reflect the current assumptions and expectations of management. Certain unknown factors may affect the events, economic performance and results of operations. iWeb undertakes no obligation, and does not intend to, update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable law.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

For more information

Marc Guindon
Groupe iWeb Inc.
Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer
(514) 286-4242 ext. 121
mg@iweb.com

Kristen Dickson
The Equicom Group Inc.
Investor Relations
(416) 815-0700 ext. 273
kdickson@equicomgroup.com

The “User Experience 2007” conference was held last week in Las Vegas. For the occasion, some members of iWeb’s development team were there with the objective of perfecting their knowledgeof web design and usability standards.

Even if some developers were surprised by the legal age needed to drink and gamble, everyone had the chance to appreciate Las Vegas’ many ways of siphoning their money.

Many concepts learned at the conference will be used by iWeb’s coders, such as some good practices in user testing, creating templates, and in pattern design. We will use this new knowledge to ensure that the forthcoming new elements on our site will be even more effective in terms of accessibilty and design.

Photograph : fadedpictures (Flickr)

Monday was a great day for Montréal and for iWeb. For Montreal, because it was the first big snow storm of this winter. For iWeb, because it was the designated day to move our Sales, Marketing and Customer Services departments. Fortunatly, we Quebecers are not impressed by some 30 centimeters (1 feet) of snow. Almost everyone made it to the new offices, at the ninth floor of 1851, Sherbrooke East St.

As shown in this video, our offices offers a great sight over the beautiful Montréal. In fact, only the marketing department does not have windows. We are thinking of installing a fish tank to fill the emptyness…

The address :

1851 Sherbrooke East street
Montréal
H2K 4L5
Office 902

MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC ? November 30, 2007 ? iWeb Group Inc. (TSX-V: IWB) (?iWeb? or the ?Company?), a worldwide internet hosting infrastructure provider, today announced the successful closing of its recently announced offering of 3,300,000 common shares at a price of $1.25 per common share, for gross proceeds of $4,125,000. The offering was made through a syndicate of underwriters led by GMP Securities L.P. and that included Cormark Securities Inc. and National Bank Financial Inc.

Net proceeds of the offering will be used to implement and finalize phase 3 and advance phase 4 of the installation of its second data center.

The securities offered have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About iWeb Group

Founded in 1996, iWeb offers a full line of advanced IP hosting services either through shared hosting, dedicated servers or co-location in three data centers, featuring over 52,000 square feet of floor space and the latest technological equipment. iWeb provides services in English, French and Spanish to clients in more than 130 countries. For more information, please visit www.sedar.com or the Company?s website at http://iWeb8.com.

Caution concerning forward-looking statements

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

For more information

Éric Chouinard
iWeb Group Inc.
Chief Executive Officer
(514) 286-4242 ext. 102
echouinard@iweb.com

Kristen Dickson
The Equicom Group Inc.
Investor Relations
(416) 815-0700 ext. 273
kdickson@equicomgroup.com

Keep your server in a fish tank ? It might not be as crazy as it seems. Angstrom Microsystems has developped a liquid that is “non-conductive, non-flammable, non-toxic and environmentally friendly” that can be used as a coolant for computers.

As shows the following picture, you would be able to submerge a computer with its monitor in the liquid, and it would continue to function properly. This demonstration occured at the SuperComputing 2007 conference.

Server cooling is an important challenge for any datacenter, and Angstrom claims its LiquiBaldes product can reduce energy costs by 25%.

“Angstrom LiquiBlades are design to cool the latest AMD Opteron? processors using a non-conductive fluid instead of water, thus eliminating the risk of data center disruption due to spillage.”

Clearly something to keep an eye on !

iWeb has just received an award from Web Host Directory for its dedicated server services for the month of November 2007. This award was granted because iWeb “offers a high quality network, directly linked by BGP offering excellent performance for game servers, web servers and all applications that require high throughput and no loss of packets”. Web Host Directory also recalls that iWeb is one the few public webhosting companies, and that it “has proven to be a trusted company due to the loyalty of his customers”.

Web Host Directory is a site dedicated to the web hosting industry, aiming to present in a neutral way, different product offers available from hosting companies. It is not the first time iWeb has received this prize. You can obtain more details about this award on Web Host Directory’s website.

iWeb announced some weeks ago the filing of a preliminary short form prospectus qualifying an offering of common shares. The prospectus has just gone from “preliminary” to “final”.

Indeed, this final short form prospectus is qualifying an offering of 3,300,000 common shares at a price of $1.25 per share, for gross proceeds of $4,125,000. These shares may not be offered or sold in the United States. As planned, the net product of this offer will be used to complete iWeb’s second data center’s phase 3 of expansion, and to start its fourth phase.

MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC ? November 21, 2007 ? iWeb Group Inc. (TSX-V: IWB) (?iWeb? or the ?Company?), a worldwide internet hosting infrastructure provider, today announced that it has filed a final short form prospectus in each of the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Québec, qualifying an offering (the ?Offering?) of 3,300,000 common shares at a price of $1.25 per share, for gross proceeds of $4,125,000.

A syndicate, led by GMP Securities L.P. and including Cormark Securities Inc. and National Bank Financial Inc. is acting as the underwriters in connection with the Offering. The closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about November 30, 2007, and is subject to usual regulatory approvals.

iWeb intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering to implement and finalize phase 3 and advance phase 4 of the installation of its second data center.

The securities offered have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About iWeb Group

Founded in 1996, iWeb offers a full line of advanced IP hosting services either through shared hosting, dedicated servers or co-location in three data centers, featuring over 52,000 square feet of floor space and the latest technological equipment. iWeb provides services in English, French and Spanish to clients in more than 130 countries. For more information, please visit www.sedar.com or the Company?s website at http://iWeb8.com.

Caution concerning forward-looking statements

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

For more information

Éric Chouinard
iWeb Group Inc.
Chief Executive Officer
(514) 286-4242 ext. 102
echouinard@iweb.com

Kristen Dickson
The Equicom Group Inc.
Investor Relations
(416) 815-0700 ext. 273
kdickson@equicomgroup.com

We have gathered, using traceroute, response times for many of the countries for whom we host servers. Of course geographic location within a country and other factors can affect the results, so this is meant only as an approximation of the response times you may encounter. We have compiled the data in the following graph:

The shortest response time is from the United States at 39.967 ms followed by Canada at 51.947ms (Yes Canada is THAT big). The longest response time is for Kyrgystan.

Wikipedia defines traceroute as “a computer network tool used to determine the route taken by packets across an IP network”. You can measure the response time of your server using our “looking glass” tool at the bottom of our network architecture page.

Since iWeb’s headquarters are in Québec, a french-speaking province, some elements of our sites were at first written in french. It was the case, until recently, for the “iWebDNS” service from iWeb Reservations, our domain registration tool.

Great news for our english-speaking customers : iWebDNS’ english version is now online !

iWeb DNS allows shared hosting customers to define their domain’s IP address, to configure subdomains, to define their domain’s mail servers (MX), and to modify all of these informations in real time.

You can access iWebDNS from the Customer Hub. It will also be available from vAdmin really soon.

Yesterday, November 14th, was the third edition of Webcom Montréal at the OACI headquarters. Even if the quality of the conferences was uneven, some are worth mentioning.

One such highlight was the opening conference by Debbie Weil, which discussed corporate blogs and CEO blogs. The american corporate blogs “guru” used many examples to illustrate its presentation, and some catchy (but oh so true) sentences to punctuate her speech. For Debbie Weil, to implement a corporate blog, you need to aim after shooting : “ready, fire, aim”. She also explained that “links are the currency of the blogs”. So let’s link to Geoffroi Garon who wrote a good summary of this presentation (in french).
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Without a doubt, a back-up generator is one of the most essential prevention tools for every data center. Regardless external forces and power interruptions (a neighborhood or local outtage, a general blackout like the one that affected Detroit, New York and Toronto a few years ago and any other circumstance which cuts off electrical power completely), it is up to the generator to ensure that your server and data remain unaffected and completely accessible until the situation is resolved.

This kind of “insurance”, however, has a a downside: it is absolutely enormous. Our generator had been installed temporarily on the side of our first data center, waiting for the City of Montreal to give its final decision regarding the best place to put this behemoth. Finally, it will be permanently placed at the back of the data center, in accordance with municipal rules. It will blend in a lot more easily and we foresee an effective integration with the neighborhood.

Rest assured, there will be no interruption in service since a temporary generator will be installed.

The mechanical shovels, tractors trailers and mixers are hard at work to ensure our generator will be cozy; the noise (and tremors) from the power hammers and drilling can be heard and felt throughout iWeb’s main offices. This is a “small” construction site compared to what is coming up though; soon we begin the third phase of expansion at the St-Léonard data center…