Issued annually, the Inc. 500|5000 list ranks the fastest growing companies in the U.S. Companies were required to have minimum revenues of $80,000 in 2006 and minimum revenues of $2 million in 2009 to qualify for the 2010 list, and must be privately held, for profit, and independent as of December 31, 2009.

“We are very pleased to be included in the Inc. 500. It is an honor to be listed among America’s top private companies and leading entrepreneurs,” said George Karidis, SoftLayer Chief Strategy Officer. “We have seen strong revenue growth and remarkable success since our founding in 2005, even through a challenging, turbulent economic climate.”

SoftLayer’s growth has been enabled by its strategic position to address the dynamic needs of businesses in an unstable economy. SoftLayer’s IT solutions offers an option for enterprises of any size, from any industry, to outsource their data center infrastructure needs and focus their resources on operational needs rather than capital expenditures.

Although the merger is not yet a done deal between the two companies, both Lance Crosby, CEO of SoftLayer, and Doug Erwin believe the end is almost in sight. During a phone conversation on Friday, Lance and Doug gave their thoughts on the merger deal brewing between the two companies.

“Is this 100% done deal? Well we can’t say we are 100%, but we are really close to that. And Doug and I are really close to putting these two companies together in the next 90 days,” says Lance.

Doug adds, “Let me put it another way. It’s not over till the fat lady sings.. and she is warming up on the side. There is a lot of work that needs to be done between our two staffs and I think we are going about it the right way, in that we hired an outside consultant… Bain Consultant to come in and work with us.”

As both sides continue to look at the merger, one of the number one concerns has been to ensure the current customers are treated well. Regarding the customers Erwin says, “I think the biggest concern Lance and I have is for a seamless integration that does not affect the customer.” To this end, Bain & Company consulting has been brought in to ensure that the possible merger avoids the many pitfalls that can occur.|

“About 6 months ago G.I. Partners approached SoftLayer about doing an investment in the company,” Lance explains. “They have done a lot of investment in this space overall including Digital Realty, Savvis, Telx, The Planet and most recently ViaWest. After they approached us and we started going through due diligence, we began to find there was a lot of common DNA with The Planet and so as we began to close the process over the last 30 days or so, we started exploring the possibility of putting these two companies together.”

That common DNA doesn’t just extend to the family history between the two companies. It also includes many mutual customers. They both also target the dedicated and cloud hosting space. However, if both companies were purely similar, merging them would simply create a larger company, which is technically not a bad thing…, but it would be somewhat boring.

In addition to the similar fields of interest, SoftLayer brings their infrastructure know how. The plans for the merger include moving customers to SoftLayer’s automation layer. This translates to the new company able to take on more customers, keeping staff low, and yet maintaining their high-grade support.

The Planet offers an enterprise level suite of services. Namely, The Planet will bring colocation and managed hosting to the party. Along with these hosting addons, The Planet also brings in enterprise level hosting features and the expertise in handling those services.

SoftLayer, up until recently, has avoided the colocation and managed hosting spaces. They have instead focused on their target niche and have not deviated from that path. And yet, if they do merge with The Planet, adding those services is part and parcel of the new company. So why now? Why would SoftLayer, who have been disciplined in avoiding the watering down of their brand, want to increase their services and in fact, consider adding those services as a definite strength?|

“It’s been on the drawing board for a long time and we are going to bring a SoftLayer approach to those two types of services that are not yet seen in the industry. As we talk about it internally we are going to pull out a big stick and poke a lot of our competitors in the eye when they see what we are going to do to colocation and managed services,” says Lance.

On the possibilities of an IPO, Lance says, “I think that [an IPO] is the most logical step for the combined companies, putting them together they are going to be about 300 million in revenues and growing rapidly and you get to a point where the number of potential suitors out their drops dramatically simply because of the size of the company so an IPO becomes the natural choice.

“So if you want to sum it up, you could say we are strapping on the gloves, ” says Doug. However, you sum it up, the potential merger between The Planet and SoftLayer could be a hosting juggernaut rivaled by very few especially in the dedicated server market.

“Marc has played a very important role in iWeb’s maturing process, since the IPO in 2004” says Eric Chouinard, CEO and cofounder of the company that now hosts 12,500 dedicated servers in its Montreal Data centers. “This is a great example of successful knowledge transfer and mentoring.”

Mr. Guindon, who previously served as Chief Financial Officer, will remain active on iWeb’s board of directors, where he has been serving since March of 2009, in addition to being a member of the Audit Committee. He will also be involved as a consultant for various special projects, including eventual acquisition plans.

“It would be very hard to find a better coach” said Philip Tousignant, who became iWeb’s Chief Financial Officer in 2008. “We are very pleased to be able to count on Marc’s expertise on our board of directors.”

Regarding his career transition, Mr. Guindon said: “Being involved with a company that plays such a pivotal role in Quebec’s IT development has been an extraordinary experience. iWeb is in very good hands at this point, for the benefit of our customers and shareholders. All the better if I have contributed to its success.” he concludes, with his typical straightforwardness.

Marc Guindon was a member of the Order of Chartered Accountants of Québec and Ontario. He joined iWeb in 2004 as Chief Financial Officer, shortly before the company’s initial public offering (IPO), to eventually become Executive Vice-President, Resources, in October 2008. Having spent the early stages of his career at Ernst &Young, Mr. Guindon then joined the SNC Group as Vice-President of Finance, later filling the same position with Treco, a division of the Canam-Manac Group. Following the creation of two groups of industrial companies, he sold his interests and retired (for the first time) in 1996, before joining iWeb.

As of June 1st 2010, iWeb’s senior management will consist of:
• Eric Chouinard, President, CEO and cofounder
• Martin Leclair, President, Products and Technology, cofounder
• Philip Tousignant, Chief Financial Officer
• Cyril Mertès, Chief Technology Officer

“We continue gaining momentum every year. We broke more projections and records this year than last, and 2010 will bring even more of the same,” said Lance Crosby, CEO of SoftLayer. “These three new pods meet the customer demand increases that we expect in the very near future. And they are only preliminary measures in our growth strategy for 2010. We have some big plans which we can’t wait to share with everyone.”

“We’re extremely excited to introduce Private Cloud services to our customers. Private Cloud gives Softlayer customers yet another dynamic, scalable infrastructure option,” said Nathan Day, CTO, SoftLayer. “This will provide a service with segregated physical computing hardware giving customers security and peace of mind with the benefits of unlimited, on-demand scalability.”

SoftLayer’s milestones in 2009 included:

• More than 5,700 active customers across 110+ countries
• More than 23,000 deployed servers
• Placement in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Hosting and Cloud Infrastructure Services
• Introduction of CloudLayer™ line of cloud services, including CloudLayer Storage, CloudLayer CDN, CloudLayer Computing, and Bare Metal Cloud™
• Industry’s first deployment of Intel® Nehalem microarchitecture
• IPv6 support across all data centers
• Multiple carrier additions across all data centers for a total of 290Gbps

The new pods are part of SoftLayer’s unique approach to data center design. Each of the company’s geographically diverse data centers consists of multiple pods built to identical specifications with the same bestin- class methodologies. This level of standardization across all its geographic locations enables SoftLayer to optimize key data center performance variables, including space, power, network, personnel, and internal infrastructure.

The MD3000i uses iSCSI Ethernet technology to enable shared storage across multiple servers, eliminating the need to build out a costly fiber channel infrastructure. Up to 16 servers can share the MD3000i, which has 15 internal drive slots for a total storage capacity up to 15 terabytes (TB). In the event more capacity is required, companies can add up to two MD1000 storage arrays to the MD3000i for an additional 45TB.
“One of the most critical business challenges customers face today is data storage, and all too often it’s also one of the most costly,” said Rob Walters, director of product management for The Planet. “The MD3000i lowers the barrier to entry for high-performance, consolidated storage, and also provides a clear path for expansion for companies that expect to see their storage requirements grow.”

About the Dell PowerVault MD3000i
The iSCSI SAN array provides a scalable and low-cost storage solution, which continually protects daily operations and enables an easy path for expansion:
Cost-effective: The MD3000i, The Planet’s lowest-priced SAN, can be shared by as many as 16 servers, which eliminates the high cost of buying individual storage devices for each server.

Scalable: In addition to its 15 internal drive slots, customers can add up to two 15-drive MD1000 disk arrays to the MD3000i, for up to 45TB of storage.

Capable: With its large capacity and high availability, the MD3000i is ideal for businesses running performance-intensive applications, databases, and file or archive storage.

The Planet, a global leader in IT hosting, today announced the availability of the Dell PowerVault MD3000i, a high-performance storage area network (SAN) disk array. Ideal for multi-server environments such as virtual and private racks, the MD3000i offers a cost-effective and scalable storage solution.

The MD3000i uses iSCSI Ethernet technology to enable shared storage across multiple servers, eliminating the need to build out a costly fiber channel infrastructure. Up to 16 servers can share the MD3000i, which has 15 internal drive slots for a total storage capacity up to 15 terabytes (TB). In the event more capacity is required, companies can add up to two MD1000 storage arrays to the MD3000i for an additional 45TB.
“One of the most critical business challenges customers face today is data storage, and all too often it’s also one of the most costly,” said Rob Walters, director of product management for The Planet. “The MD3000i lowers the barrier to entry for high-performance, consolidated storage, and also provides a clear path for expansion for companies that expect to see their storage requirements grow.”

About the Dell PowerVault MD3000i
The iSCSI SAN array provides a scalable and low-cost storage solution, which continually protects daily operations and enables an easy path for expansion:
Cost-effective: The MD3000i, The Planet’s lowest-priced SAN, can be shared by as many as 16 servers, which eliminates the high cost of buying individual storage devices for each server.

Scalable: In addition to its 15 internal drive slots, customers can add up to two 15-drive MD1000 disk arrays to the MD3000i, for up to 45TB of storage.

Capable: With its large capacity and high availability, the MD3000i is ideal for businesses running performance-intensive applications, databases, and file or archive storage.

Windows Server 2008 R2 enables dynamic provisioning and management of virtual workloads with the much-anticipated update to Microsoft’s Hyper-V™. With its Live Migration-enabling technology, moves between physical hosts now happen in milliseconds. As the first Windows Server operating system with a true 64-bit architecture, R2 also offers powerful hardware and scaling features.
“Our customers around the world are always looking for ways to do more with less, and Windows Server 2008 R2 is optimized to meet those demands,” said Todd Mitchell, general manager for dedicated hosting and global services at The Planet. “As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, we stay in lockstep with new technologies from Microsoft to give our customers more ways to reduce operating costs and increase efficiencies.”

About Windows Server 2008 R2
The latest operating system from Microsoft includes a number of updates that enhance server performance and management control:

• Powerful hardware and scaling features; R2 is the first Windows Server operating system to move solely to a 64-bit architecture, and CPU-specific enhancements enable customers to run up to 256 logical processors.
• Updated Hyper-V augments virtual workload management; Hyper-V enables Live Migration, a new feature for R2 that moves virtual machines in a matter of milliseconds.
• Ubiquitous remote access; DirectAccess allows remote users to seamlessly access corporate resources without a VPN connection or client software.
• Strongest Windows application platform to date; R2 includes the new Internet Information Services 7 (IIS 7.0), which helps applications run faster while using fewer system resources.

“We’re extremely proud that our record of success has continued. Our momentum just keeps building,” said Mike Jones, CFO, SoftLayer™. “It’s not a coincidence that, in this economic climate, more customers are turning to us for services designed to help them optimize their operations and focus on their own business objectives. SoftLayer’s results to date can be attributed to the use of cutting-edge technology deployments that did not exist 3-5 years ago.”

Key milestones for SoftLayer through the beginning of October of this year have included:

• $90 million annualized run rate
• +40% EBITDA margins
• 12 consecutive months of sequential increases in GAAP profitability
• Strong financial position, including $35 million of capital to fund future expansion
• On track for setting a record in 2009 of over 80 million in annual revenue
• Growth to more than 5,700 active customers across 110+ countries
• More than 21,000 deployed servers
• Received TechTitans award as the fastest growing company in Dallas for second consecutive year
• Placed in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Hosting and Cloud Infrastructure Services
• Certified compliance with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s U.S.-European Union Safe Harbor framework

SoftLayer has continued leading the market with significant new and updated services including:

• CloudLayer™ line of cloud services, including CloudLayer Storage, CloudLayer CDN, CloudLayer Computing, and Bare Metal Cloud™
• Industry’s first deployment of Intel® Nehalem microarchitecture
• IPv6 support across all data centers
• Additional operating systems including SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server and Microsoft® Windows Server Core
• Expanded environmental sustainability efforts
• SoftLayer Outlet, a value server sales channel
• Multiple carrier additions across all data centers for a total of 290Gbps
• New virtualization solutions including VMware® ESX hypervisor and Citrix® NetScaler® VPX
• Participation in Microsoft Hosting BizSpark™ and Microsoft WebsiteSpark™ programs

Sean Enns, Director of Marketing and Communications at Hosting Nation explained, ”We already offer a lot of extra resources in our shared hosting plans. The reseller and dedicated environments are natural extensions of products and services we already provide.”

Users receive WHM and cPanel, as well as the Fantastico DeLuxe and Installatron software installers. Hosting Nation has also added custom resources, such as simple installations of development frameworks like jQuery and Blueprint CSS and the R1Soft Continuous Data Protection. The basic reseller plan from Hosting Nation includes 25 GB of disk space and 250 GB of bandwidth for only $19.95 per month. View all reseller hosting plans from Hosting Nation

Dedicated severs are either dual or quad core Xeon servers with a minimum of 2 GB of Ram and 2000 GB of disk space. Dedicated servers from Hosting Nation start at $259 per month. View all dedicated server plans from Hosting Nation

Hosting Nation is a privately owned web hosting and web service provider headquartered in beautiful Parksville, British Columbia. Hosting Nation is committed to providing their citizens with best in class web hosting technology, software and support by drawing on over 50 combined years of experience in server management, web design, programming, project management and internet marketing.

Green Geeks, LLC is purchasing more than 48,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, which is enough green power to meet 300 percent of the organizations purchased electricity use. Green Geeks, LLC is buying renewable energy certificates (RECs) from Bonneville Environmental Foundation, a leading national supplier of green power products.

Trey Gardner, CEO of Green Geeks explained, ”This is a huge honor and we are proud to be recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We’ve always been diligent and we’ve worked hard to make Green Geeks the most eco friendly company we could be. When the EPA contacted us we were pleased to find out that companies like ours could get the support of the EPA through their Green Power Partner Program. We look forward to working with the EPA and their Program to further the cause for more companies to go green.”

Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro. These resources generate electricity with a net zero increase in carbon dioxide emissions, while offering a superior environmental profile compared to traditional power generation sources. Green power purchases also support the development of new renewable energy generation sources nationwide.

Kathleen Hogan, Director of the Climate Protection Partnerships Division at EPA noted, ”EPA is pleased to welcome Green Geeks to the Green Power Partnership. We applaud their commitment to using green power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

According to the U.S. EPA, Green Geek’s green power purchase of more than 48,000 (kWh) is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of more than 6 passenger vehicles per year, or is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power more than 5 average American homes annually.

Green Geeks LLC provides shared, reseller and dedicated server web hosting as well as domain name registration and domain management. Green Geeks has offices in Toronto, Chicago and Los Angeles and they service customers in over 40 countries World Wide. Since the start of operations Green Geeks has been an eco-friendly web host with 300% green energy purchases.

Founded in 1998 and based in Portland, Ore., Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) is an entrepreneurial nonprofit that engages market forces and ingenuity to help people address our most pressing energy and water issues. Through sales of carbon offsets, BEF supports renewable energy development and education and long-term watershed restoration. Bonneville Environmental Foundation recently established a subsidiary, BEF Renewable Incorporated, to initiate innovative renewable energy projects and partner with tax-exempt entities, such as schools, cities, tribal governments and other nonprofits, to help them develop renewable energy projects.

The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with purchased electricity use. The Partnership currently has more than 1,100 Partner organizations voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500 companies, small and medium sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, and colleges and universities.

The new site features a cleaner look and more intuitive navigation as well as additional features.

In addition to the cosmetic improvements, the new site also includes an in-depth knowledge base and customer training center. Steve Eschweiler, General Manager of Hivelocity explained, ”Our goal is to empower our customers with as much information and as many tools as possible to simplify and streamline their hosting experience.”

Within the next 3 months, Hivelocity intends to launch phase 2 of its new customer portal called SPEED. Based on early reports, SPEED is said to revolutionize how web hosts enable their customers and resellers.

According to the company, ”Phase 2 of Speed is going to set the new standard for client portals. Our customers are going to flip out when they see it.” Updates on enhanced speed will be released as the expected launch date of January 1st approaches.

Since its inception in 2001, Hivelocity has earned a reputation for being one of the best values in the dedicated hosting sector. Hivelocity uses SuperMicro hardware and boasts a 99.98% uptime track record over the last 3 years stats by Webhostingstuff.