Breaking news! We at Aplus.Net are happy to announce a set of exciting new hosting sales.

Need a Dedicated Server? Now’s the time to buy. Get a free hard drive upgrade when you order the 2x Xeon 2.4 Ghz or the 2x Xeon 2.8 GHz, two of our most popular dedicated hosting servers.

We’re also ramping up our “Refer a Friend” program to include all Aplus.Net shared hosting plans. For each new customer referred to Aplus.Net, our existing customers are awarded with a full month of FREE web hosting on their existing accounts. All shared hosting plans, from the basic Personal Plan to the state-of-the-art eCommerce Plan, are now included.

And that’s not all. Our popular, ongoing web hosting sales are still available. That means you can still save up to 30% with an annual contract, and enjoy FREE set-up on each and every shared hosting plan from Aplus.Net.

Head on over to the Aplus.Net website for more details. And have a great weekend!

This week, we at Aplus.Net announced that we’ve made comprehensive changes to our line of award-winning shared hosting plans in an effort to better accommodate today’s knowledgeable and discerning consumers. The rebranding also coincides with our ten-year anniversary of providing shared web hosting, as well as our exciting new promotion to waive the set-up fees on these upgraded plans.

“For more than a decade, Aplus.Net has prided itself on being the ultimate online partner for everyone from business owners to the everyday consumer,” commented Gabriel Murphy, our President and CEO. “To further demonstrate our commitment to our valued and loyal customer base — as well as our responsibility as a hosting industry leader — we’ve not only simplified our plans to make them more intuitive and understandable, but we’ve also added additional features, thereby maximizing the value to the consumer.”

The principal change involves condensing Aplus.Net’s eight original shared hosting plans into four renamed platforms: the Personal Plan, the Business Class Plan, the Pro Plan, and the eCommerce Plan. Each plan is available in both Unix and Windows formats.

The strategy of replacing existing plan names with more straightforward identifiers is intended to simplify the selection process for consumers, while making the plans themselves better focused and easier to understand. We’ve also expanded some applications and features, including ramping up the SQL offerings on many of these plans.

These improvements were launched earlier this week, with no corresponding price increase. In addition, to help kick off the revamped hosting plans — and as part of our celebration of ten years as a shared hosting provider — we at Aplus.Net have announced that we’re eliminating all set-up fees on the new hosting plans.

“We view this move as the next logical step in growing our company,” said Mr. Murphy. “Times have changed since Aplus.Net first got into the shared hosting game in 1998, and we’re making the necessary modifications to stay competitive. But more importantly, all this will ultimately make it easier for consumers to navigate our website, making the Aplus.Net shopping experience as user-friendly as possible.”

About Aplus.Net

A recognized industry leader since the Internet’s commercial start, Aplus.Net specializes in helping small businesses build an online customer base with a comprehensive range of services that includes web hosting and design, dedicated servers, online marketing, eCommerce, domain name registration, and much more. Aplus.Net has been awarded many honors for excellence, including the prestigious CNET Editors’ Choice Award, and has been featured in top U.S. business publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise, and PC Magazine. For more information about Aplus.Net, please visit www.aplus.net.

This weekend only, Aplus.Net is offering a huge sale on our shared hosting plans.

Sign up for a full year of shared hosting and get 15 percent off. Sign up for two years and get a 25 percent discount. Best of all, when you sign up for a full three years of shared hosting, you’ll get 35 percent off your bill.

This deal is offered on every Aplus.Net shared hosting plan. Looking for a basic web presence? Take a look at the Solo XR, our most popular hosting plan. Or do you need a website with selling power? Then the Windows Maxima may be the plan for you.

Whatever you need, Windows or Unix, Aplus.Net has it. Check out our full range of shared hosting plans here.

Today, we turn to a recent article from the Web Host Industry Review for an informative rundown of a new trend in the web hosting industry.

Those of you who follow the shared hosting marketplace have most likely already noticed this trend: Some of the market’s biggest players are merging. The most recent example is Website Pros’ acquisition of Web.com; a few months earlier, and even more significantly in terms of market share, Affinity Internet was acquired by Hostway.

These developments aren’t all that revolutionary given the customary ebb and flow of commerce. However, they do represent a relatively new trend in the web hosting industry, historically a very fractured and competitive marketplace.

Many times, these mergers are a result of a larger company that wants to branch out into new territory. Rather than spend tons of resources and revenue to get a new division up and running, a larger company simply acquires a smaller company that already specializes in providing the service.

So what does that mean to consumers? Oftentimes, it’s an advantage, since they’re given greater access to more developed products and services under one roof, rather than having to go from company to company in search of every piece of the puzzle that they’re looking for. The downside to corporate mergers is that it usually reduces the choices that consumers have, but with all the thousands of companies in the web hosting game, that’s not really an issue here.

In terms of the marketplace itself, it’s a trend worth watching. Who will be next? After the dust settles, will there be one uncontested web hosting champion, similar to the way that Google dominates the search engine field?

A much more detailed summary of this trend can be found in the latest print edition of the Web Host Industry Review. Aplus.Net’s own President and CEO, Gabriel Murphy, is quoted extensively in the article. Check it out here.