Hostway Webhosting, Acquires Affinity Internet

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Fort Lauderdale, Florida - (The Hosting News) - April 5, 2007 - Web host, eCommerce and online marketing service company for web professionals and small businesses, Affinity Internet, has been acquired by web hosting solutions firm, Hostway Corporation, combining two of the most prominent web-centric service providers.

John Lee, VP of Global Marketing at Hostway commented, ”Both Hostway and Affinity’s current product offerings will remain intact. New integrated products will be launched through the new company, but nothing will be announced at this time.”

The new company will offer customers all the products, tools and services necessary to build and operate an effective online business on a global scale – from professional web development and design, results-oriented online advertising solutions, to powerful hosting and eCommerce applications. The acquisition is the conclusion of a long and involved process that took many months. Mr. Lee continued, ”Lucas Roh, current CEO of Hostway will remain the CEO of the combined company. Both companies’ teams will remain intact in the interim.”

Andrew Schroepfer, Founder of Tier1 Research remarked, ”As the Internet Infrastructure Services industry approaches $15 billion globally in 2007 with annual growth still above double digit rates, it’s obvious that consumers and businesses alike continue pioneering value online. Hostway’s long track record of successful M and A on a global basis will greatly benefit from additional scale brought by Affinity’s client base and robust service portfolio, which makes this a strategic transaction in the industry. Both Hostway and Affinity come from positions of strength in their respective market segments, which together makes for an even stronger industry leader.”

Lucas Roh, CEO of Hostway added, ”Our first and main focus through this acquisition has been to ensure that customers of both company’s do not experience any disruption in current services and in fact bolster it further. By joining forces, we have an increased global scale, scope, human capital and financial strength to continue to deliver superior service levels and innovative products, which Hostway and Affinity have both built valuable brands and reputations on.”

Mr. Lee concluded, ”We are now a market leader in SMB hosting. Hostway and Affinity have both been evolving from a pure web hosting provider to a more complete online services provider including helping customers with web design and web marketing. Hostway recently has rolled out online backup and Hosted Microsoft Exchange hosting services. Going forward, you will see Hostway rolling out online services such as CRM, unified communication and other software-as-service type of products and services. This combination allows us to accelerate the market adoption of these services to our existing customer base. To that end, we are going to be an excellent partner for rolling out new SaaS services as well. Not only can we provide excellent world class hosting services, but we can also hook them up with our customers. We also give them an instant global foot print through our 11 international locations.”

The combination of Hostway and Affinity builds from an existing position of market share and strength with end user customers and channel partners alike. The company’s global reach and increased customer base will be an ideal platform for partners interested in expanding the reach of their offerings and customers looking for a complete scalable online business experience.

Jim Collins, CEO of Affinity Internet added, “Both parties are confident that this acquisition will generate benefits for our customers and partners. Hostway brings research and development power to build and deploy compelling and differentiated services, while Affinity has been guiding small businesses to web success with cutting edge services for over 10 years. By combining our exceptional, proprietary solutions we are able to provide an offering unlike anything currently in the market. In all cases, our customers will be positively impacted by this acquisition - by gaining a new unparalleled power for their online presence.”

Overview of the combined company

· 600,000 web hosting customers
· Direct presence in 11 countries
· 15 worldwide operation centers
· 750 employees
· Wide range of Products and services
· Domain name registration
· Web hosting
· Ecommerce hosting
· Web design and marketing services
· Managed dedicated hosting
· Colocation
· SaaS Hosting
· Online advertising solutions

The combining of the two companies is anticipated to result in the following benefits, including:

· More choices through greater investment in web services
· Superior customer support through joint capabilities
· Global hosting services in 10 international markets
· USA
· Canada
· United Kingdom
· Germany
· Netherlands
· Belgium
· France
· Romania
· Australia
· Korea
· India

Channel Partner Benefits Include:

The combined company will continue to aggressively expand its channel partner program to enable broadband providers, online portals and other Web services oriented companies to deliver high value and high growth value added web services. Both existing and new partners will be served well through:

· Greater capabilities through combined talent pool
· Widening of the product roadmap
· Improving customer service and sales performance through joint capabilities
· Investing to deploy next generation web services, bring new and compelling products to market to benefit partners’ customers

Hostway Corporation provides domain name registration, web hosting, web design and online marketing services to more than 400,000 customers worldwide. It operates data centers designed to reduce the complexity and cost of web-based technologies for small businesses and large enterprises. Founded in 1998, Hostway is one of the five largest web hosting companies in the world with offices in Chicago, Illinois; Tampa, Florida; Austin, Texas; Vancouver, British Columbia; London, United Kingdom; Paris, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Antwerp, Belgium; Frankfurt, Germany; Hannover, Germany; Sydney, Australia and Mumbai, India.

Affinity provides more than 200,000 web professionals and small businesses the tools to develop, maintain, market and support their web presence, making the Internet a useful and relevant part of their businesses. Affinity’s brands include: ValueWeb, for web design, eCommerce hosting and online marketing solutions and Gate.com, the cutting-edge UNIX and Windows web hosting service. Affinity’s co-brand and private-label partner programs enable leading service providers and Internet brands to extend their value proposition to include feature-rich web site, ecommerce and online marketing services and applications. Affinity’s services are supported by its customer service “success guides” – knowledgeable consultants with a passion for serving small businesses and a dedication to ensuring their growth and success.

Awards and Certifications for Affinity include: