What do you think the future of hosting will hold?
What path do you think it will go down?
Do you think there will be loads of small companies on reseller accountswhich last a few months at most or will this die out and only the big and stronger companies will be holding the market?
Will people work out that paying less isnt always the best option whe nit comes to hosting or will prices continue to drop as time goes by and decresing the profit made by companies which may then force the smaller to sell out and increasing the domination of the market by the larger companies that may end up having lower overheads?

If you own a company, what do you want for the future of your company?
If you are a webmaster what would you like to change about the industry?
Are you fed up of prices which you think you cant afford since websites cant bring in the money like it used to or are you fed up of the small companies closing after a few months and having to move your site?

I would like to see the future of hosting contain less companies, especially the ones offering 10gb space 100gb bandwidth for $19.95 per month. All these hosts do is make it harder for real hosts to get the clients, which isn't really a problem for the host, but rather for the client, getting hosting for a month or so and then having to go out and look for a new host because their previous one went out of business simply because they were trying to sell for outrageous prices.

I personally think there will always be alot of the little companies offering outrageous prices, but I really hope they will die out and just let the bigger ones survive.

I am only a new host so I really shouldn't say anything bad about any other hosts for being new, I mean we all have to start somewhere. But I mean I willing to invest some money into my company for a few months if I have to so I can get a good company going. I hope to see my company up near the top some day, but exactly when.. I don't know. No time soon, but in the years to come, one can only hope.

Less advertising.

Sorry I dont understand gooooogle...
Less advertising by hosting companies?
Or something else?

Well less advertising from hosting companies would decrease the ammount of overall advertising anyway right.. but yeah, I hate that advertising junk.. a banner on the top/bottom or even sides of the page I dont mind.. but the pop-ups are what drive me nuts.

I have been having a close look at the hosting industry for about 1 year now and it is unfortunate to see that it is slowly coming down. I would think that one of the main reasons it is coming down is because of BiG cats in the market offering good services like 1&1 to customers where it attracts them and also the BiG companies have all the resources like toll free support and so on.

If we were to be lucky I would hope that we would still survive in the midst of the BiG cats unless hosting companies start out like an alliance thing like how the major airlines have one called Star Alliance which I am not sure you have heard of or maybe have heard it. If there is an alliance then we would be able to support each other and let our customer know about it too so they would be more assured.

The market is flooded with hosts and I think that is why you see so many hosts closing after a few months. People do not realize that this is no longer a get rich quick business like it was 5+ years ago. In the early days people paid prices for hosting (without things such as cpanel, helm, etc) that would be seen today as outragous...

The .COM era is over and while I think there will always be some money in hosting, it isn't enough to live on. I do make a decent income from webhosting, but would I ever have it as my single line of financial income, no way.

A lot are using Hosting as their only income, if you do the sums its actually pretty easy to do but can take quite a while to get there.
If you are offering a good service then keep offering that, your company will keep growing and I think it will end up being large enough to be the only source of income and you could live off it.

I think companies doing reseller only plans is the main area that is expanding at the minute, these are growing very quickly because as you said, there are a lot of new hosts now, most of these are in reseller plans so do the maths

I meant to say less pop-up adverts. Or preferably none. I hate those things. They get in the way.

<!--QuoteBegin-gooooogle+Oct 19 2003, 01:20 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (gooooogle @ Oct 19 2003, 01:20 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I meant to say less pop-up adverts. Or preferably none. I hate those things. They get in the way. [/b][/quote]
Try the google toolbar

Blocks every popup - makes me a happy camper.

Also has some other nice features. Try it out and let me know what you think

I personally think the hosting business is still growing and will continue to grow with technology increasingly demanding communication over the internet.

However I think that consumers will be more and more picky on who to chose as their host. I think you will see many hosting companies in the future specializing in certain areas.

Example : We may host only e-commerce sites that use Authorize.net and have certain scripts/gateways installed for the users. Then host nothing else and just target consumers that would use this.

Hosting is very broad right now... i think the industry is slowly going to branch out and just focus on certain areas.

<!--QuoteBegin-Vovex Technology+Oct 20 2003, 07:17 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Vovex Technology @ Oct 20 2003, 07:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
Example : We may host only e-commerce sites that use Authorize.net and have certain scripts/gateways installed for the users. Then host nothing else and just target consumers that would use this.

Hosting is very broad right now... i think the industry is slowly going to branch out and just focus on certain areas. [/b][/quote]
Very perceptive of you.

We also agree with your analysis, and as such, have aggressively attempted to separate ourselves as osCommerce experts. Im sure more and more people will do that going forward (if not in osCommerce, then something else).

Consumers needs are very specific and most customers require specialization in whatever they are trying to accomplish. this specialization also carries a premium, that customers are usually happy to pay if the service warrants it

If a hosting company does target one specific target it would mean that they would be much more capable at giving support as they would most likely know the subject pretty well.

Do you not have to spend a while trying to establish your service, a lot longer than a normal host, when you specialize?
Or is it easier because there is less competition of other hosts offering the same as yourself?

I do agree with you, at the minute I think forum hosts are getting quite a lot of people as forums are becoming more and more popular on the net.

CMS hosts are also doing quite well I think as a lot of people are just learning how easy it is to do a site with CMS.

If you are going to specialize in something you should make sure you know the product you are hosting, your clients are more likely to expect you to be very experienced with that product and as such, offer expertise support for any problems encountered.

I have a friend that recently started running 3 servers specifically target towards hosting ACT web environment.

He sends letters out to all the local businesses.. which many of them use ACT as the scheduler/contact software. He then gives them reasons why if you run WEB ACT you can accomplish more.

Foresay you run a business in which most work is done in the field. (COMP IT, Heating/Cooling, construction, etc). You would provide access to your staff from the internet to put in the time they spent out on the job site while they are there. So you have more accurate billing, and that staff back the office knows what job tasks have been accomplished and what is still left to do.

Plus you have an online archive of your customers information. SO if you get lost you have the address/phone number right in front of you (if on laptop).

Anyways, I just wanted to show how people are starting to branch off. I know my friend steve already has 27 companies using his services right now. His pricing starts at $150 per month. Which includes a 10 users license, software lease and hosting.