Overall Editor's Rating
81%		Overall Rating
79%		Price
86%		Features
78%		Support
83%		Reliability

Business Operation
since 2001

Number of Website Hosted
6000

Overview & Company Description
In recent years, web hosting has risen to the top of the list of corporate information technology imperatives. Smart companies know that significant competitive advantage comes from hosting a website to market products and services and acting upon the feedback and responses that come from their web users. Armed with this information, companies gain more visibility into their business and take action to improve company performance.
Today, many web designers and companies have successfully used HummingBirdHosting's affordable hosting services to create web pages online.

Founded in June 2001, NSW-based, HummingBirdHosting offers affordable hosting for small to medium sized websites, supporting CGI, PHP, MySQL and more. Its current hosting plan starts from US$9.95 per month and comes with 1GB of storage space with 15Gb bandwidth allowance.
 

Why we like this company
HummingBirdHosting has placed customers at the center of everything the company does. The disconnect in business today lies between what a web user experiences when they interact with a company through a website and what the company wants the customer to experience during those interactions. HummingBirdHosting provides affordable solutions that address this disconnect and bridge the gap to help companies drive better customer interactions and increase revenue.

Browsing the net, we found that Judy Fontanella, a web design instructor from California recommends HummingBirdHosting.com's hosting services. The link to the site is at http://www.artbytes.net/classes/216Fall2004.html

We also found that HummingBirdHosting has played a part in offering free web space for Mercy Home Children at http://www.mercyhomekids.org
 

Customer Support & Rating  78%  
HummingBirdHosting's support plan addresses both technical and business issues. It includes plans for hosting management, documents the customer's configurations and website files, and database settings. The company is currently offering support according to the different server allocated to the web customers. There are 4 different support pages for different server configuration. The current configuration is as below : -

Plesk Servers 8 and 10
Plesk Servers 1, 2, 5 and 6
Ensim Servers 3 and 4
CPanel Server 7
 

HostPulse.com found out that this company updates its software frequently every 20 to 230 days to help meet the customer's availability objectives.

We have also conducted several technical support tests at different hours to identify the availability of live customer support. 4 calls were made and all 4 calls were quickly answered.
 

Hosting Plan & Price that stand out  79%  
The Power Pro hosting package is very suitable for those who want to maximize hosting features and service availability at an affordable price. This $9.95 plan is a good value buy , allowing customers to host up to 5 websites each with customer's own domain name, email accounts, FTP server, etc. The bandwidth booster is also good value for $5 per month, giving an extra 40 gigabytes of data for high bandwidth users. More details can be seen at http://www.hummingbirdhosting.com/accountcomparison.htm.
 

Network Connection and Infrastructure
Its new servers where new accounts are hosted are Red Hat Enterprise servers running Plesk 7 control panels or CentOS running Cpanel and Web Host Manager. The company uses Level 3 for its network (as used by AOL). The network is redundant with multiple gigabyte connections and the center features full power backup. They have full access to their servers within the center.
 

Reliability Rating  83%  
"In our business, reliability and speed of recovery are tantamount, so we have to be careful about the reliability of the Linux environment," says Stephen Watson, founder of HummingBirdHosting. To keep the Linux systems running without problems, he use the right tool to manage the configuration and update processes vital to their operation. The company has also shown HostPulse.com in many ways that it always goes the extra mile to understand the hosting problems and business issues that affect its customers.

With 3 years of experience in managing Linux hosting, the company is in optimal position to combine the support knowledge with precisely defined products and services to offer better hosting solutions that address data availability and reliability.
 

Web Server Type
All hosting servers offered to customers are owned by HummingBirdand and the servers are equipped with Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz + with 2 - 4 Gigabytes of RAM and 160 Gigabytes hard drives. Drives are mirrored for redundancy. HostPulse.com also found that HummingBirdHosting's servers are setup to run at very low load level with a limited number of clients per server. This is one of the reasons HummingBirdHosting is one of the 100 Most Dynamic Web Hosting Companies Year 2004/2005
 

Other Services, Marketing and Design
The company offers domain registration at http://domains.hummingbirdhosting.com
 

Hosting Feature & Rating  86%  

• Email Blocking
• Search Engine Submit Tools
• Cron Jobs
• I.P. Blocking Tool
• Hot Link Protection Tool
• Search Engine Submit Tools
• Pre-Installed Scripts
• Forum & Chat Room
• Spam Assassin
• Webmail
• Control Panel
• Webstats and Log Files
• MySQL
• Frontpage Extensions
   

Testimonials

• First of all I have a small web design company and I am extremely suprised at the response time of the Hummingbird tech staff. They say 24 hours but I have never waited past an hour for an email response which always solves my dilemma, even when it is just for advice. I have tried 2 other hosting companies. One shut down without notice, while the other one's tech support was non-existent.
  
  I have already told all my friends who develop websites and one is in the process of finishing a site. He looked at their plan and said it is unbeatable.
  
  Thank you Hummingbird Hosting I will remain a faithful customer
  
  
  Kim Burnett
  http://www.traderscb.com
   
• My last host, FeaturePrice, was a total disaster. The burns are still pretty fresh, and I find I'm very mistrustful of virtually every webhost right now. Still, I signed up with Hummingbird because my site needed a safe place.
  
  And I promptly made a dumb mistake. And thought I'd have to wait all weekend to get it fixed. Uh-uh. Billing straightened it out in *five minutes*! I was shocked! Even better, I had a few little adjustment problems during the transition (you know, when you're getting used to a new host's interface) and tech support not only responded quickly and professionally, they *offered any help they could provide*!!
  
  After experiencing utter misery trying to get help from FeaturePrice, the friendly and fast service from Hummingbird is like water to someone dying of thirst - refreshing and very much welcome. I couldn't be happier with the way they've handled things
  
  http://www.darkfriends.net
   
• Ever since I switched to hummingbird hosting, my website has been humming real good at more than twice the speed of my old provider! No more ripping out my hair when my server went down for hours (as with my previous hosting).
  
  If you want things clean cut and simply fast, these guys are an excellent choice. Support rocks. And geez I love the versatilit and power of the control panel.
  
  Matus Lipka
  Aephid Technologies
  www.aephid.com
   

Traffic Magnetism
The Internet is altering the face of hosting ­ and the way hosting does business. Under this influence and resulting hosting, the explosion of data collection and dissemination accelerates the pace of hosting, and hosting providers struggle to comprehend the impact to their markets.

However, when it comes to marketing HummingBirdHosting seems to have made certain good decision which act as the competitive forces that shape its business to become faster, and sharper. HummingBirdHosting enables small and medium-sized businesses to enjoy the same benefits of hosting services that larger enterprise data centers have realized for years. Ideally suited for web designers and small business owners, its US$9.95 per month Power Pro hosting plan allows them to experience simple and seamless out-of-box hosting solutions. The company has taken initiatives to market its website online through link exchange and simple advertisement programs to increase its company's visibility and exposure. In addition to that, HummingBirdHosting is targeting a defined audience in an environment that is not yet crowded with competitors. It aims to target a defined customer group with precision and develop an ongoing relationship. This allows HummingBirdHosting to transact hosting business electronically at lower costs.



Accomplishments

• Rated "Top 100 Most Progressive Web Hosts 2003" By Hosting Catalog.com
• Proud Member of Hosting Assured with very positive feed back and customer ratings
• HummingBirdHosting was also in HostPulse.com's100 Most Dynamic Web Hosting Companies Year 2003.
   

Success Factors
"We enjoy being a mid-sized web hosting company, thus avoiding the dis-economies of scale that are often apparent with larger companies. We plan to maintain our current size and quality of service throughout the future years while continuing to offer competitive prices and new deals such as our newly introduced Bandwidth Booster service." said Stephen Watson, founder of HummingBirdHosting.com

The company has successfully delivered affordable hosting solutions. HostPulse hopes HummingBirdHosting continues to provide affordable, reliable and innovative solutions in the coming years.