Microsoft Corp. announced the beta availability of Microsoft Office Live. Office Live is available in three versions, all of which are free for the beta release - Office Live Basics, office Live Collaboration and Office Live Essentials.

Google Inc. on Thursday temporarily suspended signing up new accounts for its Web site hosting service due to heavy demand. The new service includes online tools that can arrange text, images or other types of Web content within pre-built templates in a variety of styles.

Nonprofit organization Grassroots announced on Friday that it is offering a free domain name for one year to its new and existing nonprofit clients. 'Free domain names are the first step for nonprofits and charities who want to use Grassroots.org's tools and services, which include Web site design and development, online advocacy tools, issue promotion and more,' says Grassroots president Jim Ward.

Verio Inc., a US-based subsidiary of NTT Communications Group and provider of hosting and Internet services for small to midsized companies and partners, has announced an industry-leading hosting innovation for developers of Microsoft Windows applications with the launch of its MultiSite hosting solution.

hostmysite.com was recently named one of Inc. Magazine's 500 fastest-growing companies. Although a veteran of the hosting industry, having existed since 1997, the company nevertheless considers today to be a new beginning in this very competitive industry. It plans to be around during and after an anticipated period of consolidation, according to CEO Lou Honick in this exclusive interview.

Interland announced that it will change its name to Web.com, Inc. on March 20, 2006 in order to align itself more closely with its core web services business. The company will continue to trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange, however under the memorable stock ticker 'WWWW'. The company's previous ticker was 'INLD'. The ticker change will also take place on Monday March 20, 2006.

MonsterHosting.ca, a Canadian web hosting and e-commerce solutions provider, introduced today its new SHOUTcast web hosting service, aimed at tapping into a growing number of organizations utilizing the technology to reach their customers.

Data transport services company, Looking Glass Networks, has entered into a multi-year agreement with Voxel Dot Net, a privately held New York-based managed services provider, for Looking Glass' DarkGLASS dark fiber services, EtherGLASS Ethernet transport services and CentraGLASS collocation services.

Fuse9, a shared and resller webhost announced that the company's entire fleet of servers would have 'Web 2.0 technologies' including PHP5, Ruby on Rails, and Python. To ensure that there are no compatibility issues, all servers will remain supporting PHP4.

Shared Web host and e-commerce provider GlobalWebBrands announced on Thursday it has launched its new Web site, along with a range of new services. The changes reflect the company's shift in both its business model and direction, as it moves to a new Web hosting partner.

XFONE USA, a subsidiary of XFONE, Inc. (XFN), has announced that it has acquired the assets of EBI Comm, Inc., an Internet Service Provider whose services for commercial and residential customers in northern Mississippi include web hosting.

Canada Web Hosting announced its acquisition of Bagna Networks Inc., a corporate IT consulting and managed IT services provider. The acquisition was driven by Bagna Networks' proven high quality of customer service, its relationships with clients, and its high-availability and disaster recovery solutions for corporate clients.

XO Communications announced that it had made significant upgrades to the Web hosting packages offered by its Concentric hosting brand, providing increased bandwidth and disk space with more email addresses to customers of its Email Hosting, Starter and Clustered Hosting plans. The plans also include a free one-year domain registration.

A provider of mission critical contact center and enterprise IP communications, Aastra Intecom, has announced the formal launch of its contact center hosting service featuring its Centergy Virtual Contact Center solution.In addition to selling the solution outright to major enterprises and carriers, Aastra Intecom has formally entered the hosting market to satisfy the need for contact center technology on demand among small to medium sized companies, as well as major corporations.

IPOWER,Inc. has received web hosting awards from two online web hosting directories-FindMyHost and WebHostDirectory. The company attributes the awards to the operational improvements they made in the areas of customer service and product development last year.

Verio Inc. announced the availability of its Verio Reseller Business Tools (RBT), a suite of tools designed to assist viaVerio resellers with the management of their businesses. RBT integrates with Intuit QuickBooks Pro for automatic synchronization with order, payment, refund, customer and product information, allowing resellers to streamline accounting processes and improve financial planning.

Olympic Advantage announced the launch of its Web hosting subsidiary, Musicians Hosting, intended to provide up-and-coming musicians with cost-effective web hosting. The 'Performing for Tips' program, and music-delivery mechanisms designed to enable local musicians to expand their audiences onto a global scale.

GoDaddy announced that after a lengthy battle over content, the 14th ad submitted by the company was approved by ABC Television's standards and practices division to air during Super Bowl XL.

MonsterHosting introduced its new SHOUTcast web hosting service, aimed at tapping into a growing number of organizations utilizing the technology to reach their customers. A fully-manageable control panel will be provided to customers to administrate their SHOUTcast accounts.

Hosting Connecticut LCC has developed a new affiliate program, wherein web site owners receive commissions by sending customers to Hosting Connecticut LLC.com. After a free registration process, affiliates can control most aspects of their affiliate advertising campaigns. In addition, affiliates have access to real-time online performance and commission reports.

BroadSpire, a web hosting services and managed IT services provider, has announced the introduction of 'Small Business Web Stores', a series of e-commerce solutions designed for small business owners. According to BroadSpire's Suresh Srinivasan, Small Business Web Stores are 'the perfect combination of low-cost, ease-of-use, flexibility and scalability necessary for today's small business owners.'

WebStream Internet Solutions announced that it has developed a new user interface for tracking organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). According to the company, the tool allows clients to track SEO marketing by monitoring SEO rankings, sales and shopping cart habits.

Spoono.com has introduced reseller hosting capabilities to its line of web hosting offerings. For a monthly price of $29.95, the reseller plan includes 5 Gigabytes of disk space and 200 Gigabytes of data transfer and gives users access to a WebHost Manager account in which they may define their own web hosting plan sizes and create hosting accounts for up to 150 websites in their allotted space.

Host Color announced the integration of support for PHP 4 and PHP 5 scripting in its new NextColor control panel. Improved SSH capability is another feature of the control panel.

Biztology announced the launch of its new server control panel, Cube Panel. The hosting automation solution supports both Linux and Windows operating systems and offers a fully customizable and multi-lingual control tool.

IDG Netherlands, a technology media, research and event company, has signed a multi-year contract with Dedigate, Terremark Worldwide Inc's managed hosting subsidiary. IDG's strategic business expansion via online channels would be served by Dedigate's Amsterdam environment designed specially for IDG Netherlands and its business growth, according to IDG's Raimon Gort.

Spider Technologies, Inc. has announced the launch of a new web hosting division, Spider Tech Hosting. Its services include a range of hosting packages, database creation and storage, domain registration, Blog facilities, RSS Feeds and XML Streaming, and advertising program tracking.

Steadfast Networks' new data center at the Lakeside Technology Center owned by Digital Realty Trust, Inc in Chicago, USA is expected to become operational in January 2006. Key objectives of the new center are to ensure good service and support business expansion.

Swiftroute will move their server infrastructure to Equinix's Singapore Internet Business Exchange (IBX) centre. Swiftroute will benefit from the aggregation of networks operating in the centre, as well as the industry-leading security, environmental and physical infrastructure of the IBX.

NetStrategies, a provider of Internet services has launched a new website, GoHost, offering web hosting services to small businesses. GoHost features an SEO toolkit, website polls, photo gallery, estore, document manager, site banner management, site search, collaborative publishing, site calendar and CRM application.

Internet America Inc. announced the appointment of Jennifer S. LeBlanc as its new CFO. The company also announced its plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to Houston from Dallas.

Fidelity Assets announced that it has partnered with Pullan Communications to offer its customers web hosting options alongside its more familiar search engine marketing, web site development and email marketing services. Fidelity Assets will help Pullan Communications' real estate agent clients get targeted traffic sent to their websites from Google, Yahoo!, AOL and MSN.

Web hosting provider HostMySite.com has announced that it has attained Gold Certified status with competency in Networking Infrastructure Solutions and Advanced Infrastructure Solutions from the Microsoft Partner Program, as recognition for its expertise in providing customer satisfaction with Microsoft products and technology. The range of benefits that accompany this status is expected to help maximize HostMySite's efficiency.

Affinity Internet has announced the launch of its new 'web hosting brand', Gate.com. Its Linux solutions include Symantec Brightmail Antispam and two terabytes of data transfer, while its Windows ASP.NET 2.0 Solutions include Microsoft Windows Servers and back-end systems, managed code and control panel interfaces written in ASP.NET 2.0.

Incognito Networks has announced that an agreement to acquire SCPanel.net, makers of the Shoutcast control panel. Incognito will maintain SCPanel developers and continue to release new Shoutcast features.

XO Communications, Inc. announced that it has secured a three-year contract to provide voice and data services to the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars. XO will deploy communications solutions for the Rangers at Ameriquest Field in Arlington, for the Stars at their Frisco headquarters and at three Dr Pepper StarCenters located across the Metroplex, increasing voice capacity by 25% and doubling available bandwidth.

Swedish web hosting company, Loopia, has launched a scheme to raise one million dollars for the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, which develops the Firefox web browser.One million pixels of advertising space on 'HelpFirefox.com' will be sold for $1 each.

Wave2Wave Communications has announced its acquisition of assets belonging to IntelliSpace Inc. in New York, Connecticut, Philadelphia, and Chicago. The acquisition allows Wave2Wave to offer a vast array of services ranging from web and email hosting, wired and wireless connections, VOIP, community and municipal Wi-Fi infrastructures, and office networking.

DemoWolf, which specializes in online branded demonstrations for the web hosting industry, announced its partnership with ResellersToday, a web hosting company specializing in reseller plans. DemoWolf flash tutorials demonstrating common tasks are expected to significantly reduce the number of support tickets filed by ResellerToday's customers.

Sitestar Corporation has announced its purchase of Netrover Inc., effective January 1, 2006. The acquisition will strengthen Sitestar's balance sheet and increase its presence in North America, by opening Canada as a new market for its services.