The world of the Internet is rapidly expanding, and the need for web hosting service providers has increased proportionally. Web hosting business has seen a tremendous increase in past years. Keeping in mind the hosting market, many software companies are trying to tap this market. Microsoft has launched Microsoft Exchange Server software suite to run on dedicated web servers. There are other players such as those who are offering Linux based hosting server.

Features of Microsoft Exchange Server

The Microsoft Exchange Server offers a consolidated package consisting of email, folder sharing, mobile, and web based access features to users. It is a part of the Windows Server System series. The Microsoft Exchange Hosting makes it possible to exchange information between the employees of a corporation. This is achieved by through various means which include:

• Synchronization of inboxes

• Access to calendar, contact information and task list

• Access via mobile device browsers that allow devices that use HTML based application.

• Access via WAP based devices

The services offered by the Exchange server can be accessed over Intranet or the Internet through a personal computer or hand held devices like mobiles. The Microsoft Exchange Hosting runs over MS Windows Servers operating systems. Exchange server program has been made to support various protocols like POP3, MAPI (Outlook 2003), SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols. The server program also support mobile devices which are using third party operating systems like Treo, Blackberry, Motorola, PCs, Smartphones, and QPocket.

Features of Linux Hosting Server

Linux has remained the most popular choice for web based hosting since long. This is because of a number of reasons:

• Relative stability as compared to other operating systems

• Linux is cheaper than other available options

• A number of Linux versions that are available

• A Linux server has far lesser chances to crash or being hit by virus attacks that makes it clear why most of the web hosting companies prefer Linux server.

It is because of these reasons that Linux servers can be found to be hosting some of the popular hosting sites today. Also, the control panels available for Linux hosting are relatively better than those used in other servers.

Forum Hosting

With the reach of the Internet expanding, more and more people are using this medium and posting their personal opinions different issues. Forum hosting is among the leading services that the hosting servers are now providing. Depending among the popularity of the forums, the number of registered users may be very large. The server requirements for hosting a forum are different. The forums usually get updated frequently from the post of users. This makes the search engine scrawl through them regularly. This further increases the load on the servers to respond to the bulk of request they gets at a given time.

Blog Hosting

The Blog is the latest fad among the Internet users. The numbers of blogs has increased tremendously and will see further growth. This is the reason Blog hosting is becoming commercially viable as the viewership of the reader is increasing day by day. This helps to increase the revenue margin generated through advertisements. There are dedicated hosting sites that boast millions of registered bloggers such as wordpress.com. This implies stringent requirements that service providers should meet such as :

• A high uptime of the servers which should be above 99.95% if the servers are hosting blogs that enjoy a huge popularity.

• A good support for e-commerce applications in case the blog is selling products or services.

• Software Support for popular blog sites like Joomla, WordPress, PHPBB for forums.

• High CPU limit to serve high number of request at any given time.

Web hosting business is seeing a lot of change in terms of the need, requirement and expectations of Internet users. Many sites like www.phphosts.org are providing full support for web hosting. The Internet hosting market is expected to grow phenomenally in coming years.