Hosting provider LeaseWeb attains Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Status

December 6, 2007; 11:04 AM
Amsterdam -- LeaseWeb (www.leaseweb.com), international supplier of hosting services with a position among the top 30 hosting providers worldwide has been awarded the status of 'Microsoft Gold Certified Hosting Partner'. Admission to the Gold partner programme is the ultimate confirmation to LeaseWeb's customers that they have entrusted their hosting solutions to an organisation with proven expertise in Microsoft products.

"Many companies are looking for a hosting-partner that can flexibly adapt to their evolving business needs," says Ruud Mous, LeaseWeb Sales Director. "They want an advisor that has the expertise to take charge of their long-term technology strategy; an advisor who can help design a scaleable hosting environment to ensure continuity and quality over the long term. The 'Microsoft Gold Certified Hosting Partner' programme gives our clients that guarantee. For them, it is comforting to know that they have entrusted their hosting to an experienced partner with the knowledge and proven competencies in the field of Microsoft technology."

Advantages of Gold status

As a Gold Certified Partner, LeaseWeb is better able to offer first-class Microsoft products to our customers. Admission to the Gold Partner Programme means, among other things, that LeaseWeb will have early access to the newest Microsoft technologies and products, even before they are available to the general public. The licensing programmes within the Microsoft Gold partner programme also lower LeaseWeb's customers' costs for software purchasing, licensing administration and technology development.

Requirements placed on LeaseWeb

In order to become a Microsoft Gold Partner, the candidate must possess a deep knowledge and considerable experience in the field of Microsoft technology. For instance, the organisation must have enough Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP) present, including Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers (MCSE). MCSEs are the best-educated professionals in the field of Microsoft technology; they are experts in designing, installing, configuring and administering complex Microsoft products. Customer references also play an important role in achieving the Gold status. Microsoft approached various LeaseWeb clients via a customer satisfaction survey and asked them to evaluate the hosting solutions provided. Their positive evaluation was a large part of LeaseWeb's current promotion for to Microsoft Gold Certified Hosting Partner.

Strategic co-operation with Microsoft

Ruud de Jonge, DPE Director for Microsoft Nederland: "The implementation of the newest Microsoft technology increasingly asks for more knowledge and experience from our partners. We therefore consider partners like LeaseWeb to be essential to our success. Our clients want security and therefore demand a quality guarantee from their suppliers. LeaseWeb offers that quality. We are proud of the relations that we have with our partners in the field of hosting. LeaseWeb has achieved an extraordinary degree of success. We see it as a crown to our strategic co-operation that has since produced several Microsoft certified employees and successful hosting implementations for our clients."

About LeaseWeb

LeaseWeb is an international provider of hosting products and services that is primarily geared towards the professional market. The company is among the top-30 hosting providers worldwide (see the ISP Market share Report of November 2007 on www.securityspace.com). LeaseWeb’s services include domain registration, web hosting, dedicated- and co-located hosting, VPS and streaming, as well as technical support. The company is the proprietor of a first-class network that offers a bandwidth of more than 150 Gbps, spanning 6 data centers in the region of Amsterdam that are connected by the leading telecom carriers. Furthermore, LeaseWeb is present via Internet exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Frankfurt, New York, Vienna, Stockholm, Warsaw, Zurich, Prague and Madrid. This way LeaseWeb enables companies around the world to create and continue their online presence in a simple and affordable manner. The reliability of the LeaseWeb network has proven itself time and again, with a realised uptime of 99.99% in 2006, as indicated in studies by WatchMouse (www.watchmouse.com). Since the founding in 1997, LeaseWeb has managed more than 7,500 servers. LeaseWeb's clients include Hyves, Koninklijke Joh. Enschedé, Starbucks, Direct Wonen, Telenet Belgium and Univé.