hosting industry

The time for HostingCon 2009 has finally arrived. I arrived last evening (Saturday) to get a jump start on things and get oriented. This year's event is being held in the Gaylord Hotel just outside Washington, D.C. The first day here I took a short 20 minute shuttle ride to the nation's Capitol then viewed the Smithsonian Institute and Washington's popular downtown monuments. It was an easy ride back to the Gaylord. It is a large hotel with a huge atrium housing shops and restaurants of various descriptions.

The web hosting industry is in a very interesting position in the beginning of 2009, heavily influenced by two opposing trends. The first trend is the continuing growth in IT infrastructure and innovation in the sphere of web-related technologies, while the second one is decreased consumer spending in the face of what everyone expects to be a lengthy, unpleasant recession.

Unless you've been living in a hole in the ground, chances are you've heard about (and probably participated in heated debates discussing) Web hosting overselling over the past couple of years. However, one aspect of overselling is rarely discussed: the long-term effects on the Web hosting industry.

This is often not realized, but any trend has a long-term effect on something. In this case, how does overselling affect the Web hosting industry a year from now? 2 years? 5 years? This is what I hope to shed some light on.