Finding the Right Windows Hosting for Your Site
Windows web hosting is a popular platform. It’s not as popular or as wide spread as Linux web hosting platform (OS) but honestly it is gaining ground quickly in the last several years.
The newer generations of application developers are being drawn to Windows hosting, and its popularity has grown to the point that as much as 50% of the hosting industry is on a Windows platform.
This platform is well suited to organizations whose operational, database and storage needs are quite huge. It provides a stable and reliable environment for business hosting needs.
An interesting fact about this type of hosting is that switching from a Windows hosting plan to a Linux hosting plan, is easier done than the other way around. This is good information for a business that has plans to expand in the future, to get installed on a Windows platform at the onset.
Why is Microsoft gaining ground in this arena? Well, quite simply Microsoft is done messing around They have seen their market shares in plenty of markets drop off a cliff in the last 10 years and they are starting to re-invest wisely into new technologies, upgrades, and becoming a cutting edge company once again.
We think Microsoft is uniquely positioned because of the amount of cash that they have on hand — it’s just a matter of which direction they choose to focus on.
So what exactly is Windows website hosting? Windows is the commercial hosting system that Microsoft uses. Servers are utilized by the host for their hosting services and these are essentially PCs and hard drives. In Windows hosting the server used is an NT server that can be installed on Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP.
The need for hosting on a Windows server comes into play if your website utilizes visual basic programming, you need to create a website using Microsoft Front Page or if you plan to utilize the Microsoft application known as Active Server Pages. In these situations, the host will create an environment for the development of .Net and MS Index Server.
Other programs and features such as the database software MS Access, Visual Interdev, WYSIWYG editors, Dynamically Database Driven Pages, all work with Windows applications and if they are an integral part of business operations, they will integrate nicely in a Windows hosting environment.
It’s obvious that large scale hosting is one area that Microsoft is making some strides in. And we expect this to continue in the near future. Windows is just as reliable as other operating systems and the costs have come down to where it is now competitive with regards to cost.
The Best Windows Hosting Picks For 2011
Startlogic (#1 Top Hosting Pick!)
- Price $3.95/month
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- Domains Unlimited
- Domain Setup FREE
- Website Builder Included
- Shopping Carts Your Choice
- Google/Yahoo Credit $75
MyHosting
- Price $4.84/month
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- Domains Unlimited Hosting
- Outlook Email FREE
- Site Builder FREE
- Google Anti-Spam FREE
HostGator
- Price $4.95/month
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- SiteBuilder Free
- 1-Click Script Installs
- 99.99% Uptime
- Guarantee 45 Days
- Adwords $100
iXWebHosting
- Price $3.95/month
- .Net Top Hosting
- Windows Server 2003
- Space Unlimited
- Bandwidth Unlimited
- Domain Names 3
LunarPages
- Price $4.95/month
- Hosting Professional
- Eccomerce Enabled
- Domain Names 3
- SSL Included
- IP Dedicated
- TremenDesk Included
- Miva Install Included
Our Top Windows Website Hosting Pick — StartLogic
The company is very new on the hosting scene and was started in November 2003. However, it is fast developing and at this time has hosted about 100,000 domains.
Startlogic is our top windows hosting pick, we believe that they are a great pick for businesses and especially for businesses that are a bit larger than what might be considered a small business (fewer than 5 employees). Why do we say that??
Well, Startlogic’s servers, speed, performance, security, and reliability are all top notch. In fact there system architecture is often raved about on other review sites (and on this one). They have features that are wonderful for business, ecommerce, SEO, and their servers integrate with ASP.Net, Php, MySql, and all the other standard languages and databases. There databases are lightning fast and extremely powerful as well.
What StartLogic Hosting Offers:
- Asp.Net 2.0 with Ajax
- Windows 2003 Server
- CGI-Bin Support
- 100 GB Storage
- 1000 GB Transfer
- Hosting of Unlimited Domains
- Free Domain on Sign-up
- Free Account Set-Up
- Affordable Windows hosting from $8.95 /month
- 24/7 Technical Support
- Supports Windows and Linux Hosting
- Award winning cPanel
StartLogic provides for its clients an ideal environment that includes solutions for .NET and ASP clients in its Windows Logic hosting plan.
The reason why we recommend these servers to slightly larger businesses is because we have heard a few reports that their customer service (while responsive) is a bit on the techie geek side. In other words they need to dumb it down a bit and perhaps hire some people that are better at explaining things to the “lay people”.
Now, if you’re a larger or mid-sized business then you will probably have at least an IT guy if not a dedicated IT staff. These brainiacs will be able to talk to the folks over at Startlogic and get things humming if there is a problem in no time flat. But, if you try to do it yourself you may be left with that overwhelming feeling and more importantly not be able to resolve the issue quickly.
As usual, all of our web hosting picks are great, but we do feel that Startlogic dominates this market and is the best, we also feel that they are addressing their phone support issue as we write this.
Hosting Solutions — from Windows Primed and Ready for a Breakout
As was mentioned earlier, Microsoft is focusing a good bit of its massive resources on improving it’s web host server OS technology and related technologies so that they can grab more market share in this extremely lucrative industry.
A great benefit of Windows is the easy integration with Microsoft’s range of products. Developers have long been familiar with this platform and they have created many compatible technologies applications for it.
Due to the Windows product is licensed by Microsoft, it has traditionally been less affordable that its competitor Linux, but today that cost has been reduced significantly and at StartLogic the hosting fees start at just $8.95 per month for hosting.
Microsoft is undoubtedly the King of PC’s and ,well, they are looking to remain the King there and also move more aggressively into other markets — cloud computing, web advertising, mobile devices — wherever new technology and large amounts of money are to be made Microsoft will be there.