iWeb Communities: Blog

Shutdown Day 2008, which is intended to raise awareness about the dangers of computer extended use, will occur on may 3rd and iWeb is proud to be part of it by providing the necessary infrastructures for this day to run smoothly. You can now close your computers without any concern.

Even if the event organizers say that stopping the activities of our datacenters would generate an economy of energy equivalent to 111,659 boilers heating at the same time, it is our duty to stay online. The only solution we found so everyone could shutdown their computer is to keep our servers up and running.

”Shutdown Day is extremely thankful to iWeb Technologies, the leading Internet hosting and infrastructure solutions company from Montreal, for generously donating the necessary infrastructure and bandwidth for the Shutdown Day campaign event for the year 2008“, says Ashutosh, co-founder of Shutdown Day.

Radio-Canada and Montreal Tech Watch, among others, have already talked about Shutdown Day.

Computers all over the world, be assured that iWeb will always be a safe place to those whose owners would like to take a day off.

Photo : poloballs (Flickr)

Always ready to broaden its horizons, iWeb is flying to Europe with nine other businessmen from Quebec for a Trade Mission, between march 28th and april 5th. The purposes of this trip is to establish contacts with european decision makers, but also to show how we can get things done.

The mission is organized by the Young Chamber of Commerce of Québec (RJCCQ):

?In a globalized business world, we are really happy to offer to ten young businessmen from Québec the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the European Union Model, to seize commercial opportunities, and to build a solid relation with european partners. The european market is perfect for Québec companies, and we believe that, after this mission, these ten businessmen will have the necessary skills and knowledge to help them conquer this market.? says Martin Thibault, RJCCQ president.

iWeb counts many european clients, and this trip is a great occasion to consolidate the company presence in those countries.

You can read the RJCCQ press release (in french) on the CNW website.

P.S. feel free to invite us if something is organized in Hawaii!

MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC – march 19, 2008 - iWeb Group Inc. (TSX-V: IWB) (?iWeb?), a worldwide internet hosting infrastructure provider, unveiled its brand new corporate identity along with a new website now available at iweb.com. The deployment of the website under the much coveted domain name iweb.com is an important element for the consolidation of the company’s brand.

“This new site is an important step in the process of affirming iWeb’s identity and in the differenciation of the company in front of the competition”, explains Martin Leclair, Chief Operation Officer at iWeb. “Our ultimate goal is to transform and facilitate the use of our hosting infrastructures and the server or shared hosting management by giving more control to our users, by speeding the services delivery, and by offering unique, user-friendly and attractive online tools”, he adds.

The new website is the first visible effort in a series of improvements which will be unveiled in the coming months and which will include new products, but also an all new ordering process , and a recasting of the Customer Hub, iWeb’s control panel used by customers to manage every aspect of their hosting plan. This new image of the company is the next step in the consolidation of iWeb’s position alongside the leaders of the evolving web hosting industry, and also to make room for a renewed and improved services offer.

“For many months, every department joined forces to produce a new user-friendly website, from design and accessibility, to the great variety of offered services”, explains Hugo Dénommée, VP Development and Automation. “We are very proud of what has been accomplished and of the results are now public”, he says.

For each of the four sections, major products additions have been made. In the dedicated servers and colocation sections, a new range of Mac servers, private dedicated server racks, cages in colocation and anti-ddos are now available. Our range of dedicated servers, load-balancing, clusters, and managed hosting services remain vital components of our offering. In the shared hosting section, all offers have been completely improved, a website builder has been added, and an offer for Google Adwords credit have been added.

We invite ou to visit iweb.com to discover our new website.

About iWeb Group Inc.
Founded in 1996, iWeb offers a full line of advanced IP hosting services either through shared hosting, dedicated servers or colocation in its own data centers featuring 52,000 square foot of floor space and the latest technological equipments. iWeb provides services in English, French and Spanish to clients in more than 140 countries. For more information, please visit www.sedar.com or the Company?s website at http://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 described herein. 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.

For more information

Olivier Niquet
iWeb Technologies Inc.
Communications officer
(514) 286-4242
oniquet@iweb.com

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

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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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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After attending the first Montréal’s FacebookCamp where members of the marketing and development communities were gathering around Facebook, we thought it would be interesting to test Facebook’s new “Pages” tool. An “iWeb Technologies” page is now available on the most popular social networking site of the moment. We would like to invite you to join our page as “Fans” of iWeb in order to follow company activities and promotions.

The main interest for a web hosting company, or for anyone, to create this kind of page is to benefit from an additional means of communication in order to inform customers, to be able better know those customers, and to explore new markets. Unlike Facebook groups, the page sends to its members notifications which appear within the user’s news feed.
Continue reading »

It’s Halloween time, but iWeb won’t hide under a witch, ghost or iPhone costume. At iWeb there’s no time for fun with so much work to be done.

You can go trick-or-treating without a care in the world while our team of skilled professionals keeps an eye on the uptime of your pumpkin, and on its candle power supply

Happy Halloween !

iWeb has recently announced the opening of its third data center in Montréal. It seems that the city is a good place for web hosting purposes.

John Rath, a data centers expert, has produced an analysis [PDF] establishing localization factors for a data centers. According to Mr. Rath, the selection of a site requires some instinct : “the most important factor is simply building where their gut feeling is”. But two practical issues come first when considering site selection.

1. Natural Disasters and Weather

Vulnerability to disasters of a geographical location has an important impact on the viability of a site. A data center must not be exposed to power outage because of hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes or floods.

2. Workforce and Business Climate

The availability of a qualified workforce is another essential factor. Same thing for demographic trends of one city compared to another. Evidently, the business climate, including governmental subsidies, tax breaks and costs of doing business are requirements not to be neglected. It is also important to estimate energy consumption costs, and the proportion of this energy that is “green”.

Many others factors are analyzed in Mr. Rath’s document.

According to Mr. Rath’s analysis, we can conclude that Montréal is an excellent site to establish a data center. The city had some problems with an ice storm at the end of the 1990s, but Hydro-Québec, the state run electrical utility has since updated its network and infrastructure. Furthermore, because of the great hydroelectric potential (a relatively green way of producing energy), the electricity is available at low prices. Finally, Montréal can count on five Universities on its territory, providing a steady stream of IT professionals… which could eventually join iWeb workforce !

You are excited by the evolution of network uptime and are able to install a hard disk with one hand while surfing the Web with the
other? You need the sound of a 1 megawatt generator to fall asleep ? You could sell a Linux server to Bill Gates ?

Well, there’s probably a place for you at iWeb ! With the expansion of the company, the number of employees should go from about 60 to almost 100, and many jobs are now available :

• - Technical representative
• - Representative – Advanced technical solutions
• - Technical Sales Representative, Shared Web Hosting
• - Technical Representative – Colocation
• - Sales Representative – Prospecting

We are looking for dynamic people to complete our reputed team and to participate in our baby-foot (and petanque) tournaments. You are not the enthusiastic, smart and full of promises person we are looking for ? Well, this is not a lost cause since you can recommend someone you think would be good enough for iWeb and receive 500dollars in exchange ! Do not hesitate to consult our offers on iWeb Recruit and to send your resume to cv [@] iWeb8.com.

iWeb is proud to announce its association with the Halloween Fest, an event that will occur on October 27, 2007. Its purpose is to collect funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation of Canada. More than 2,5 million people around the world are victims of this disease, and the Foundation’s goal is to help between 55,000 and 75,000 Canadians.

We invite you to join us in great number to this event in order to contribute to this important cause. The concept is simple : come disguised or just wearing a hat. A band and a DJ will be waiting for you, prizes will be given. More details are available on the event’s website.

You can always try to bribe us to get some free tickets by sending us an email.

The famous TopHosts.com site has named iWeb as October’s best Canadian web host. Top Hosts’ ranking purpose is to identify the most efficient hosts regarding customer service, product offerings, marketing and technology adoption.

iWeb has already receive this prize many times, and is looking forward to repeating this exploit in the future. As Éric Chouinard explained : “The staff at iWeb is honored to receive this prestigious award. The whole team has worked very hard to achieve this, and we will continue to provide the best service possible. In fact, we have just kicked off our new fiscal year by announcing the opening of a new data center, it will be ready to open in a few months, this will help us maintain our high standard of service.”

More details are available on Top Hosts.

iWeb employees were this weekend getting together with the sole purpose of partying a little in good company. For the occasion, a petanque field had been roughly drawn on the ground, and the most experimented of iWeb cooks were on site to prepare succulent hot-dogs.

The bucolic landscape of Saint-Damien, in Lanaudière, served as a decor for the second edition of iWeb Petanque Challenge on the term of which a team was declared champion. The winners however asked to stay anonymous. Each of the star petanque players, called temporarily “Closer”, “Sniper” and “Eagle Eyes”, had their moment of fame. The day went on and on until some car headlights had to act as spotlights to satisfy the immoderate egos of the athletes seeking for victory (and beer). Meanwhile, some zealous hackers were piling lines of code in order to keep fit.

Between two hot-dogs, iWeb executives took some time to reiterate the importance of the employees in the business’ successes, and to manifest their pride for the quality of the relations deployed between everyone. Each department went for a short assessment about last year, about their good and lesser good actions, and about the bright future we are about to engage in.

Here are is a photography of iWeb’s gang :

The exceptional development of iWeb Technologies accelerated since the construction last year of our new data center in St-Leonard; it has been necessary to increase our manpower in order to sustain this growth. Since last year, the number of employees has doubled and this trend should further continue.

For this reason, our office on Hochelaga street became exiguous, and it is now requisite to rent new temporary office space so that the development of the company follows its course. The objective, as always, is to maintain the quality of our services.

Most of the members of the Marketing, Sales and Customer Service departments will move to new work spaces on the 9th floor at 1851, Sherbrooke East street, in Montréal. The employees will enjoy from a beautiful sight of the city, in addition to being near the famous Lafontaine Park. Moreover, this new site remains at short distance of iWeb’s Hochelaga street offices. The change involves approximately 20 employees who should move within one month.

The following map shows the location of this new office.

We will add photographs of the work spaces as soon as we are installed there. Until then, here is the complete address of the building :

1851 Sherbrooke East street
Montréal
H2K 4L5
Office 902

For addresses and directions to other iWeb facilities, please consult the Contacts page.

Today we announced our results for the third quarter, which ended on June 30, 2007. The Company?s financial statements and MD&A can be accessed at www.iweb8.com and www.sedar.com.

Highlights of the third quarter:

- A 70% increase in revenues over the same period in 2006
- Net earnings up 42% over the same period in 2006
- Appointment of three new Vice Presidents and a corporate Controller, to ensure effective management of the Company?s rapid growth and maintain its current service levels
- Official TSX Venture Exchange Tier-1 Issuer Status obtained

As shown by our results, the Company is operating in a sector that is experiencing high growth and demand for our service offering remains on the rise. During the third quarter, we built up our management team, implemented various cost control systems and continued investing in our infrastructure. The exceptional results posted are proof of our ability to manage this growth and effectively position ourselves to become a leader in the dedicated server hosting sector.

At the close of the third quarter 2007, the company?s consolidated revenues totaled $2.6M ? an increase of $1.1M or 70% over the same period in 2006. This revenue growth can be attributed primarily to a rise in dedicated server demand.

Gross margins for the quarter equaled 59.1% of total sales, compared to 54.1% of sales posted in the same period in 2006. This improvement was mostly due to an increase in sales volume and tight cost controls.

Overhead costs rose from 41% of revenues in the third quarter of 2006 to 47% for the same period this year. This increase was due to a higher level of business activity related to the Company?s growth, particularly a rise in expenses for advertising that targeted the dedicated server market and carrying charges for securing additional credit facilities.

Net earnings for the three-month period ended June 30, 2007 stood at $200,848, compared to $141,936 for the same period in 2006. This increase can be attributed primarily to the improvement in gross margins.

Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation and amortization and share-based compensation (adjusted EBITDA) continued upward, reaching $714,369 versus $422,607 for the same period in 2006 ? a result that attests to the Company?s ability to generate increasing and positive cash flows.

Selected Financial Information

Read the complete press release here.

iWeb will visit HostingCon 2007 from July 23th to July 25th. HostingCon is the biggest annual convention of the Web Hosting Industry. The convention will take place on the huge 3,300 foot long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan called Navy Pier. We shall be available to meet the customers that would like to speak with us thus do not hesitate to contact us and it will be a pleasure to meet you there and to answer your questions.

We hope to see you in Chicago !
For more details of HostingCon on 2007, visit the following site: http://www.hostingcon.com/2007/

August 1th

We are back from Chicago (since a few days already) and, once again, Hostingcon gathered a lot of industry professionals. It was a very interesting presence for the iWeb team, who met certain clients and providers, and participated to interesting conferences.

You can see here under one of the pictures taken during our stay with one of our clients. Bulent, it was a pleasure to meet you during the event, and we hope we will have the occasion to repeat the experiment anytime soon! :-)

The initiative taken by one of our account managers, Jean-Luc SansCartier, allowed him to collect the exceptional amount of $2325 for the Shaved Heads Challenge by Leucan. First of all, we would like to thank all those who contributed generously and to thank Jean-Luc for this wonderful initiative which will allow to help thousands of children that cost him an amazing transformation done by his dear working colleagues.

Thank you for your generosity, it will help enhance the well-being, healing and recovery of children with cancer.

Following the initiative taken by one of our account managers, Jean-Luc SansCartier, iWeb has decided once again to participate in another good cause, the Leucan cause. Leucan is an association which the mission has been to enhance the well-being, healing and recovery of children with cancer and ensure support for their families. For the occasion, Leucan Kicked off the 4th provincial edition of the Shaved Heads Challenge. The Shaved Head Challenge is a gesture of solidarity towards cancer-stricken children. It contributes to play down the loss of hair for children with cancer during their treatments. This extraordinary show of solidarity helps them accept their treatments and facilitates their integration back into normal life. Last year, 5,100 participants agreed to have their heads shaved, and more than $2.5 million raised.

Jean-Luc has volunteered to collect donations by shaving his head, in the name of the cause, in exchange for your donations. IWeb supports Jean-Luc’s initiative by doubling, up to $1000, the global amount collected until Saturday.

The cancer-stricken children count on you to encourage them in their fight by making a donation at the following address: http://defileucan.ca/Participant.aspx?id=1192&lang=en. By donating, you help thousands of children and their family and you have the chance to see our dear account manager with a new look! (Jean-Luc’s ”After” picture will be posted next Monday). We take the occasion to congratulate Jean-Luc for his excellente initiative and all our customers for their participation.

Thank you and be generous!

We released today our financial results for our second quarter of the financial year 2006-07, ending March 31, 2007. For this second quarter, consolidated revenues increased by $912,752 or 66% against the same period in 2006. Revenues totalled $2,290,877 compared to $1,378,125 in 2006.

A special item reduced the income before income taxes for an amount of $95,779. In March 2007, the Company modified a bonus clause in a subordinated debt with the owner of the debt. That clause specified that an amount representing half of one percent of the Company?s market value was payable as March 26, 2011, the maturity date of the debt. Expecting that this bonus value could increase in the next four years, the Company decided to repurchase the bonus clause on March 16, 2007, for an amount equal to the fair value of the bonus clause, resulting in a charge of $95 779 against second quarter earnings.

With this special item, net earnings for the quarter ended March 31, 2007, was $21,710 compared to an amount of $189,057 for the same period in 2006. The decrease in net earnings is also due to an increase in publicity expenses incurred in order to have a greater visibility in the Company?s targeted markets, and by an increase in financial expenses.Management expects that these publicity and financial expenses recorded in 2007 will help the ongoing growth of the Company, and increase its future profitability.

Gross margins went from 53.4% of revenues in 2006 to 56.0% of revenues for this last quarter.

Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved again to reach $487,244 against $359,709 for the same period in 2006. This increase confirmed the Company?s ability to generate improving positive cash flows.

During the quarter ended March 31, 2007, the Company had proceeded to a major combination of its current debt, and negotiated new loans totalling $4.5M to finance its new data center.

Read the complete press release here.

Montreal, May 1st, 2007 – iWeb Group Inc. – iWeb8.com (TSX-V: IWB) is pleased to announce it has met the requirements of TSX Venture Inter-Tier Movement Policies and that, accordingly, its classification has changed to Tier 1. The company is also taking advantage of the opportunity to announce the appointment of three new vice-presidents and a corporate controller.

The change in TSX Venture Exchange classification is to take effect at opening on April 25, 2007. Among other benefits, it will allow the company to implement a new stock-option plan that was voted in at March?s shareholders? meeting.

We are extremely proud of our new Tier-1 status and where we are today,? said Eric Chouinard, iWeb’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.

iWeb also announces the nomination of three new vice-presidents : Cyrille Mertès as Vice President Global IT Infrastructure, Sylvain Leclair as Vice President Sales and Marketing and Hugo Dénommée as Vice President Development and Automation. All three have degrees from the Université du Québec à Montréal ? Leclair in business administration, Mertès and Dénommée in business computing. They previously worked for the company as department managers for several years.

?With more than 60 employees now, we needed to cement our management positions and the company?s overall organizational structure,? said Martin Leclair, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at iWeb. ?One of our biggest challenge is to manage a rapid growth in staff while maintaining the quality service level our clients are used to receive at iWeb. I?m proud to be able to count on Cyrille, Hugo and Sylvain to assist me in this regard, as well as with corporate operations,? he added.

Finally, a new controller also joins iWeb’s team. Mr. Philip Tousignant previously occupied different positions in the financial services departments of companies such Avestor and Bombardier. He will be working closely with Chief Financial Officer Marc Guindon.

About iWeb Group Inc.

Founded in 1996, iWeb offers a full line of advanced web hosting services either through shared hosting, dedicated servers or colocation in its own data centers featuring 25,000 square foot of floor space and the latest technological equipments. iWeb provides services in English, French and Spanish to clients in more than 140 countries.

iWeb Group Inc. is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the IWB stock symbol. For more information, visit the Company?s website at http://iWeb8.com

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The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. For more information relating to this press release, please communicate with our Chief Financial Officer, Marc Guindon, at 514-286-4242 or visit our website at http://iweb8.com/investors.

Here some news concerning the ETS Lan Party sponsored by iWeb which took place last weekend. This event was a success for iWeb given the high turnout at our stand. We distributed approximately 400 T-shirts and had the chance to chat with our current customers who were present at the event. Make sure to get hit the “read more” link of this article to see more pictures.

Here’s a few pictures taken during the event!

The iWeb Team

Our Lovely Ladies

The iWeb Stand

The Gamers

iWeb is proud to rank at the top of Netcraft’s Top 10 most reliable networks for January 2007. Three Web Hosting providers share the “Most Reliable” award for January. This is the third time in the past few months that iWeb’s network is listed as one of the 10 most reliable networks among several world class web hosters! You can read Netcraft’s full article at News Netcraft.

The Netcraft analysis is made by measuring, every 15 minutes from several different access points, the accessibility to the main Web site (in our case iWeb8.Com) of the listed Web hosters. Please note that the web hosting companies located in the United States are privileged in the classification over other hosters in the world because most of the servers that collect the data are located in the United States.

By default the hosters sites are ranked in order of failed requests and time to connect, but other criteria can also be considered. Once the analysis is made, Netcraft makes available the response times of fifty leading hosting providers? sites of this ranking, which iWeb is part of.

More information on the measurement process and the last 15 minutes measurements are available at http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/Hosters