Amazon Web Services has reduced pricing for running Windows on its cloud, while Google has lowered the pricing of its Compute Engine services.

In what continues to be a competitive public cloud hosting and infrastructure landscape, Amazon Web Services has reduced pricing for running Windows on its cloud, while Google has lowered the pricing of its Compute Engine services.

The two cloud giants continue to go head to head with one another as well as with private and hybrid cloud rivals.

The move comes a month after Amazon Web Services lowered the price of its new E2 Reserved Instances running Linux/UNIX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server by up to 27 percent.

Google also announced increased the number of virtual servers users can select from, as well as and making its cloud services easier to use for European users.

Though the two public cloud service vendors are continually improving their respective services, pricing will remain the deciding factor that convince companies to move their on premises servers.

Amazon continues to ramp up the selection of Windows-based server products customers can host on its infrastructure, as well as lowering the cost of its Windows on-demand EC2 instances by up to 26 percent.

Amazon also recently lowered the cost of its Simple Storage Service.

Google has also lowered the price of its infrastructure as a service product, Compute Engine, by 4 percent. The IaaS offering, which enables users to run Linux Virtual Machines, now offers instances from $0.132 per hour in the U.S., which is slightly more than Amazon’s EC2 standard on-demand medium instance type which is priced from $0.120 per hour.

In addition to the price reduction, Google is also opening its Compute Engine platform to all companies who sign up for its Gold Support package, a value of $400 per month.

Finally, Google has added new instance types, improved the management console and the ability to run virtual servers in Europe.

Talk back: Will you be taking advantage of either Amazon Web Services or Google’s lower cloud pricing Do you think this latest price reduction will push Amazon Web Services or Google forward as a cloud market leader Let us know in a comment.

Dynastack Cloud Desktops allows users to provision virtual desktops and workstations complete with profiles, roles, security, applications and storage

Cloud services provider Dynastack announced on Thursday the first release of its Cloud Desktops product and the planned release of its Hybrid Cloud Desktop solution powered by OpenStack.

Though cost has hampered market penetration of virtual desktop infrastructure, Dynastack says it sees more enterprises adopting VDI with thin client and bring your own device architectures as well as moving to desktop as a service offerings. A study by Visiongain last year estimated that the global cloud-based VDI market would reach $11.2 billion in 2012.

Those findings are contrary to a more recent Forrester Research study which found that less than 10 percent of IT decision makers in North America and Europe plan to implement virtual desktop infrastructure deployments.

Dynastack Cloud Desktops allows users to provision virtual desktops and workstations complete with profiles, roles, security, applications and storage one time and then deploy that instance to dozens or hundreds of users in a matter of minutes, according to the press release.

Dynastack says that it has found the primary complaint among current adopters of VDI and DaaS technology is the high latency of the remote display. Since 2011, Dynastack has been working on several solutions to the issue and will launch its Hybrid Cloud Desktop solution in the coming months to address these needs.

“VDI represents an intriguing prospect that hasn’t really reached fruition in terms of enterprise rollout,” Dynastack CEO Jared Rice said in a statement. “I suspect that is largely due to the inherent video latency issues with traditional VDI offerings and the underlying costs to address it. Our Hybrid Cloud Desktops solve the problem by using local resources primarily and then burst to the cloud when more resources are needed all while continually backing up both instances. Hybrid gives mobile workers the flexibility enterprises are looking for, while at the same time creating the ultimate BYOD. Since everything is really in the cloud ecosystem, it’s as secure as you want it to be.”

Cloud Desktops from Dynastack have the option to run Windows, Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and ChromiumOS with utility pricing similar to standard server pricing. Dynastack says its primary goal is to continue developing its cloud ecosystem along with its Hybrid Cloud Desktops in order to bring the price point down to a friendly consumer level.

Dynastack offers Cloud Desktops in its private and public cloud ecosystems as well as offering it as an enterprise public or private VDI solution. The formal launch is scheduled for next week on April 8, though it is offering advance accounts for select users. Details are sparse on pricing and packages as the Dynastack website is still not fully functional.

Last year, enterprise OpenStack company Piston Cloud partnered with Gridcentric to launch the first virtual desktop infrastructure for OpenStack.

Talk back: Have you looked at offering a desktop as a service or virtual desktop solution What do you think of Dynastack’s perspective on challenges with current VDI offerings Let us know in a comment.

In the week ending April 5, 2013, GreenGeeks is offering the first month of its reseller hosting service for 1 cent

In the week ending April 5, 2013, GreenGeeks is offering the first month of its reseller hosting service for 1 cent, Action Web Group is offering 10 percent off all its web hosting packages, Net Depot is offering 24 percent off its Intel servers, and UK2 is offering £200 off selected dedicated servers.

GreenGeeks Offers One Month of Hosting for 1 Cent

Web hosting provider GreenGeeks is offering the first month of its reseller hosting service for only 1 cent.

The promotion applies to all reseller hosting plans from the smallest Seed plan to Forest plan.

The seed plan enables customers to host up to 10 clients on unlimited disk space and bandwidth, while the Forest plan allows resellers up to 250 clients on unlimited space and bandwidth.

Action Web Group Offers 10 Percent Off Web Hosting Plans

For its April promotion, Action Web Group is offering 10 percent discount on all three web hosting packages, including Starter, Advanced and Jackpot.

The discounted price applies when customers sign up for a monthly or annual contract.

To redeem this discount, customers must enter the promo code “apr2013″ at checkout.

Net Depot Offers 25 Percent Off Intel Servers

From now until April 30th, Net Depot is offering the latest Intel servers at a 24 percent discount.

NetDepot’s servers include free cPanel server migration,full IPMI access, KVM over IP, remote reboot, remote OS reload, hot swap hard drives, 24-hour customer support, free GNAX AppMonitor for server and application level performance management, access to high performance SAN, redundant storage, and fully managed options.

UK2 Offers £200 Off Selected Dedicated Servers

UK web hosting provider UK2 is offering a £200 discount on selected servers. All UK2 servers include 100TB of bandwidth, gigabit ports, 24-hour support, a redundant network infrastructure and up to 32GB DDR3.

To redeem the £200 discount, customers must enter the coupon code “200OFF” in the checkout.

The offer applies to annual contracts for UK2′s UKG800, UKG1600 and UKG3200 servers.

Rackspace is suing patent troll IP Nav and Parallel Iron in federal court in San Antonio, Texas

Cloud hosting provider Rackspace announced on Thursday that it is suing patent troll IP Nav and Parallel Iron in federal court in San Antonio, Texas.

According to a blog post by Rackspace, it is asking the court to award Rackspace damages for breach of contract, and to enter a declaratory judgement that Rackspace does not infringe on any of Parallel Iron’s patents.

The background leading up to the lawsuit goes back to December 2010 when IP Nav, an agent to patent owner Parallel Iron, accused Rackspace of patent infringement. IP Nav told Rackspace it was unable to provide any details about which patents it was infringing unless it entered into a forbearance agreement. Rackspace negotiated a mutual forbearance agreement that would require either party to give 30 days’ notice before bringing suit. Parallel Iron then sued Rackspace in Delaware without providing any notice.

“Our goal with this lawsuit is to highlight the tactics that IP Nav uses to divert hard-earned profits and precious capital from American businesses. This time, the patent troll should pay us,” Alan Schoenbaum, Rackspace General Counsel said.

Rackspace has been on the receiving end of many patent infringement cases in recent years, seeing a 500 percent jump in legal spend fighting patent trolls since 2010. Earlier this week, Rackspace and Red Hat won a federal court decision granting early dismissal of a patent infringement claim brought by Uniloc USA.

According to recent research out of Boston University, patent trolls cost the US economy about $29 billion in 2011.

“As an organization of primarily small to medium sizes businesses we understand firsthand the devastating effects patent troll lawsuits have on our industry. Patent trolls undermine the ability of i2Coalition members to deliver the innovative products and services that enable the Internet economy and create jobs,” i2Coalition board chair and co-founder Christian Dawson said. “We will continue to educate our elected officials and fight the trolls until real patent reform becomes law. We applaud Rackspace’s efforts to confront one of the most aggressive patent trolls out there.  Not every company in our industry has the ability to take such action, and hopefully we can use cases like this as a megaphone to emphasize the ongoing threat posed by patent trolls and shine a light on their shameful behavior.”

Talk back: Do you think that Rackspace will win against IP Nav What is your perspective on patent trolls in the web hosting industry Let us know in a comment.

(The Hosting News) – Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) Co-Founder and Board Chair Christian Dawson released the following statement regarding patent trolls and the Rackspace lawsuit against Parallel Iron:

“As an organization of primarily small to medium sizes businesses we understand firsthand the devastating effects patent troll lawsuits have on our industry. Patent trolls undermine the ability of i2Coalition members to deliver the innovative products and services that enable the Internet economy and create jobs. We will continue to educate our elected officials and fight the trolls until real patent reform becomes law.

We applaud Rackspace’s efforts to confront one of the most aggressive patent trolls out there.  Not every company in our industry has the ability to take such action, and hopefully we can use cases like this as a megaphone to emphasize the ongoing threat posed by patent trolls and shine a light on their shameful behavior.”

About i2Coalition

The Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) supports those who build the nuts and bolts of the Internet, and we treat it like the noble profession that it is. We believe the continued growth of the Internet is vital for growing an environment of innovation and seek to engage in ways to foster success of the Internet and Internet infrastructure industry. We seek to influence decision makers to weigh decisions on whether they are good or bad for the Internet economy and its foundational industries. In short, we seek to foster growth within the Internet infrastructure industry by driving others to harness the Internet’s full potential.  To learn more about i2Coalition, visit www.i2Coalition.com.

Source: i2Coalition’s Statement on Patent Trolls

(The Hosting News) – The MetaregistryTM RRPproxy, a division of the German based domain registrar Key-Systems GmbH, has joined the Afternic marketplace as a Premium Partner. Afternic, a NameMedia company, currently offers the largest portfolio of “Fast Transfer” premium domain names in the world. RRPproxy’s customers now have access to this wide range of inventory via the API and the RRPproxy web interface.

Afternic’s Domain Listing Service is the world’s largest domain marketplace, offering millions of currently registered domains for sale. “Many of our resellers have already shown interest in premium domains, and we are very excited to be able to offer this product to them”, states Alexander Siffrin, CEO of Key-Systems. “Afternic’s large volume of high quality, premium domains will be a great asset to offer our customers.”

With the Afternic integration, Key-Systems’ RRPproxy customers will now have access to Afternic’s premium domain inventory through their reseller interface. Any domain name that is registered and listed in the Afternic market will return the price associated with the domain purchase to the RRP clients. At customers’ side, just a minimum of implementation work is required in order to participate in this revenue channel.

Key-Systems is a member of the KeyDrive S.A. holding, which includes existing Afternic partners such as NameDrive, Snapnames, and Moniker. Key-Systems’ retail portal domaindiscount24 will join the Afternic integration as well, adding to the value of the partnership and offering more domain choices across Europe.

About Afternic

Afternic is part of NameMedia, a leader in the acquisition, development and trading of digital real estate through a network of highly targeted websites and a marketplace for premium domain names. The company’s marketplace allows owners of premium domain names to sell domains, and for domain buyers to review the largest available inventory. Headquartered outside Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts, more information is available at www.namemedia.com.

Source: RRPproxy Adds Reseller Access to Afternic

(The Hosting News) – Website security provider SiteLock on Thursday introduced its mobile application.

The company’s services pertain to scanning, malware removal, PCI compliance and firewalls.

“As the SiteLock customer base has grown to more than 700,000 online businesses around the globe, we have identified the need to support them in innovative ways that align with the way they run their businesses,” commented SiteLock President Neill Feather via  press release.

Feather also went on to discuss how the new application would allow customers to have “peace of mind.”

The app is available via the Apple App store and allows clientele to view a dashboard featuring statuses of content, infrastructure, application and reputation.

Source: SiteLock Unveils Mobile App for iOS

Cloudfinder is a cloud-based solution that securely backs up all emails and documents from Google Apps accounts. Cloudfinder enables businesses to search for files and emails, restore previous versions of files and get back deleted files and emails.

Source: Cloudfinder Launches Its Secure Backup For Google Apps On GetApp And Earns Top Rating

To help clients get the most business value from cloud computing and in anticipation of the shift in demand toward the public cloud, Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has launched the Accenture Cloud Platform.amp;nbsp;As more and more clients are going digital, the Accenture Cloud Platform provides services and solutions designed to help organizations integrate and manage the hybrid cloud environments that span across multiple vendor platforms and are critical to providing ultimate flexibility and supporting emerging technologies.

Source: Accenture Cloud Platform To Help Businesses Integrate And Manage Technology In A Hybrid World

(The Hosting News) – Hosting company Peak 10 on Thursday revealed that it would provide colo services to popular open source and enterprise Linux provider Red Hat.

In addition to general availability of its data center network, Peak 10 is also providing Red Hat with a private test lab for the company to scrutinize its applications preceding full release.

Peak 10’s offerings include services such as disaster recovery, security, enterprise and private cloud, among others.

“Moving significant parts of our IT infrastructure to Peak 10 to support our global service delivery made its team an extension of our team, allowing us to concentrate on our core competencies and scale our business more rapidly,” commented Red Hat CIO Lee Congdon via a press release.

Congdon, meanwhile, went on to discuss the collaboration between the two providers, emphasizing “efficiencies and costing savings” the company would incur as part of the move.

Aside from its Linux OS, Red Hat provides virtualization, identity management, cloud, Linux add-ons and more.

Peak 10’s data center network is prominent in U.S. cities including Atlanta, Cincinnati, Nashville and Richmond. The revelation follows an announcement made in November of last year that Peak 10 had opened its fourth data center located in the Charlotte, North Carolina market.

Source: Powering Open Source: Peak 10 Hosts Red Hat