After exhibiting at HostingCon for the past three years, HostingPanama will use this year’s event to target Web hosts who are losing customers to other offshore hosts but are afraid of high costs and complicated startup procedures. HostingPanama will showcase its Panama-based Web hosting , Dedicated Servers and colocation services, offering low startup costs and access to technical support from an English-speaking support department and network operations center.

Eduardo Vila, Chief Sales Officer of HostingPanama noted, ''As the only Offshore Hosting provider exhibiting at HostingCon, we are emphasizing how we are 'Different' in every respect from the mainstream hosting community. Traditional Web hosting has become a commodity, and most providers are suffering from the effects of a hyper-competitive marketplace. Offshore hosting, however, adds a new dimension and introduces a slew of selling points that enable providers to build their customer base in a new, fast-growing area. We are enabling Web hosts to offer a service full of key features that no new software upgrade will ever match - privacy, security, and confidentiality.''

The benefits of offshore hosting are far reaching for businesses of all sizes. From a technical standpoint, HostingPanama's multiple datacenter nodes offer access to major fiberoptic continental backbones, ensuring especially low latency to the United States and Canada. The datacenter nodes also feature round-the-clock physical access security, advanced automation, and of course redundancy interlaced throughout every infrastructure system.

But the advantages go beyond the infrastructure: the country of Panama provides businesses with an array of incentives, including robust business privacy protected by strict secrecy laws; lack of an income tax for foreign businesses; and anonymity of business operations.

HostingPanama will exhibit at booth #310 in the exhibit hall of HostingCon. It is offering a variety of promotions to encourage Web hosts to sign on during the conference.

Customer service hours will be extended to 7 a.m.- 7 p.m. EST. Customer service representatives will be standing by during those hours to answer questions about accounts and help tackle any issues that customers may experience.

David Koston, VP of Operations at cPanel noted, ''As we continue our efforts to provide a high quality of service, software and support, we feel this change will make it easier for us to deliver.''

cPanel technical analysts are already standing by 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to help with installations, troubleshoot issues and ensure customers have a smooth experience with the software software.

Eric Gregory, cPanel's resident 'Swiss Army Knife,' added, ''As cPanel continues to grow we will continue to add new staff to ensure the smooth operation of our business and software. The ultimate goal is, as always, to provide our customers with the right products at the right time so their businesses can grow.''

The Certification Authority and security company created the new guidance for completion of the PCI Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), as a critical element of the compliance process. The Painless PCI program was specially developed for Level 3 and 4 merchants who conduct up to a million annual transactions. With this offer, eMerchants can achieve compliance with a personalized guide that will assist them throughout the often challenging PCI questionnaire and Data Security Standard.

The needs of smaller merchants are often overlooked when it comes to risk management and compliance solutions, even though they comprise over 90% of all merchants (Source: Greensheet). PCI compliance solutions are typically designed for the larger enterprise with the expectation that they will need to be 'sized down' for the smaller merchant. This initiative reverses the business model with a specially designed tool to meet the needs of this large group of merchants.

The integrated program uniquely delivers PCI compliance expertise on security solutions and processes needed to efficiently achieve compliance. The free program is delivered within an intelligent web-based wizard that creates and manages a remediation plan based on each merchant's individual circumstance.

Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO and Chief Security Architect for Comodo noted, ''Issues around compliancy and risk mitigation are rapidly becoming more critical for e-businesses to address. Comodo has changed the model of how merchants can be supported in their critical compliancy and risk mitigation needs with our Painless PCI program. As a Certification Authority, it is important we actively support improving the level of compliance and security within the ebusiness community. The PCI Program makes PCI compliancy achievable and painless for virtually any online business.''

Elements of the program include:

• HackerGuardian PCI Compliance Wizard
  This innovative, intuitive, free, web-based application guides merchants through the PCI compliance process. The wizard helps eMerchants determine if they are PCI compliant and, if not, how to best achieve PCI compliance. The wizard provides:
  • Guidance through the Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) - Provides step-by-step explanation of questions and terms as the eMerchant answers the SAQ
  • A custom company Remediation Plan that contains:
    • A list of remedial actions required for full PCI Compliance
    • A remediation planning tool enabling task prioritization and project management
    • Links to recommended products, information and services that will help a merchant resolve compliance issues
    • A ready-to-submit PCI DSS Self Assessment Questionnaire
• PCI approved Comodo Security Solutions
  Should a merchant require PCI compliant security solutions such as vulnerability scanning and SSL security, the Painless PCI Program identifies which solutions are required and can provide these solutions from Comodo, an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV).

Registration has been designed to be easy and simple for participants:

1. Affiliates register on Planet Alpha's affiliate program page located at www.theplanet.com/affiliates.

2. Affiliates gain access to a full-featured management portal, which provides marketing materials, product information and a personalized HTML code to embed on their site.

3. Partners place links on their sites using the marketing materials.

4. Visitors to the affiliate's Web site click on The Planet links, and a cookie is implanted to designate the source. Concurrently, The Planet Web site integrates with the affiliate vendor to make sales.

5. Affiliates can log into the affiliate portal to monitor sales conversions.

6. Share-A-Sale issues payments to affiliate partners.

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide the following:

• High level of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business