Fasthosts Explained

Fasthosts
Type:Private limited company
Foundation:1999
Founder:Andrew Michael
Location City:Gloucester
Location Country:England
Industry:Internet services
Parent:United Internet
Homepage:https://www.fasthosts.co.uk

Fasthosts Internet Ltd is a provider of Internet access and hosting services based in Gloucester, England. The company also operates the domain name registration service UKreg.

Fasthosts was originally started by Andrew Michael, then aged 17, as part of an A-level school project.[1] It became a limited company in 1999, and launched UKreg in 2000.[2] The company specialised in providing services for small businesses,[3] and in 2002 was listed as the second fastest growing technology company in the United Kingdom by The Sunday Times. In 2005 the company had a turnover of £20 million and made £5 million profit.[4] The company also became known for hosting lavish staff Christmas parties; an event in 2005 costing £600,000 featured appearances from Jonathan Ross, The Darkness and Boney M.[5]

In 2006 Fasthosts was sold to German Internet service provider United Internet for £61.5 million, netting Michael £46 million for his 75% stake.[1] Michael remained as CEO until 2009,[6] when he left to found Livedrive.[7]

In September 2007, shortly after Alisher Usmanov's investment in Arsenal Football Club, Craig Murray blogged about the character of Usmanov, a Russian multi-billionaire Forbes magazine had identified as the 142nd wealthiest person in the world.[8] He said he named Usmanov, alleging corruption, in two of his "quite highly classified" telegrams to the Foreign Office London in 2002 and 2004 written while Murray was ambassador in Uzbekistan.[9] Usmanov's solicitors, Schillings, requested that Fasthosts delete the material. As a result, the server that hosted Murray's blog was permanently closed by the hosting company on 20 September 2007, an action which resulted in unintended deletion of other sites, including a blog by Boris Johnson.[10] [11]

A hacking incident in 2007 prompted Fasthosts to temporarily shut down customers' websites. The company noticed that its servers had been accessed in October and wrote to customers recommending that they change their passwords; in December after noticing "unusual activity" on some sites it closed down those that had yet to change their passwords until new passwords could be issued by post.[12]

In 2008 Fasthosts acquired reseller Streamline.net,[13] and also launched a reseller hosting service in the United States.[14] Cloud infrastructure service Rise was launched in 2010.[15] Fasthosts was the sponsor of The Great Exhibition 2012.[16] In October 2014 Rise was quietly divested to Outsourcery for an undisclosed sum [17] As of 2017, Fasthosts has approximately 415,000 customer contracts spread over a variety of products from domain registrations to email, web hosting and server products.[18]

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Internet entrepreneur celebrates £61m deal. The Independent. English. Simon. 11 May 2006. 15 October 2010. 9 January 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150109125518/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/internet-entrepreneur-celebrates-16361m-deal-477723.html. live.
  2. Web site: Our history so far . Fasthosts . 15 October 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20101018085953/http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/companyinfo/history-of-fasthosts/ . 18 October 2010 .
  3. News: Tools Of The Trade: Fasthosts LiveMail Pro email system. The Independent. Stephen. Pritchard. 31 October 2004. 15 October 2010. 16 June 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110616233639/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/tools-of-the-trade-fasthosts-livemail-pro-email-system-545517.html. live.
  4. News: Young entrepreneur pockets £61.5m. BBC News Online. 12 May 2006. 15 October 2010. 14 February 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090214121823/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/4765591.stm. live.
  5. News: Ross and The Darkness star at £600,000 office party. https://web.archive.org/web/20101128081630/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/ross-and-the-darkness-star-at-163600000-office-party-520197.html. dead. November 28, 2010. The Independent. Cahal. Milmo. 20 December 2005. 15 October 2010.
  6. Web site: Fasthosts Internet Ltd. Company Profile . . 15 October 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110622002435/http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/134/134891.html . 22 June 2011 .
  7. News: Internet whizz Andrew is at it again. This is Gloucestershire. 5 May 2009. 16 October 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20101030152045/http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/news/Internet-whizz-Andrew/article-960456-detail/article.html. 30 October 2010. dead.
  8. News: Weiss. Michael. Civil Disobedience on the Web. Slate. 10 October 2007. 8 April 2018. 8 April 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180408210337/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2007/10/civil_disobedience_on_the_web.html. live.
  9. News: Conn. David. Government denies access to Usmanov reports. The Guardian. 31 October 2007. 8 April 2018. 9 April 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180409043320/https://www.theguardian.com/football/2007/oct/31/newsstory.sport11. live.
  10. News: Boris Johnson becomes a victim of crossfire in internet war. Kennedy. Dominic. 22 September 2007. The Times. 8 April 2018. subscription. 9 April 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180409043205/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-becomes-a-victim-of-crossfire-in-internet-war-hf8h0h3v3zr. live.
  11. News: Tryhorn. Chris. Boris website down after legal row. The Guardian. 21 September 2007. 8 April 2018. 8 April 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180408210246/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/sep/21/digitalmedia.politicsandthemedia. live.
  12. News: Hackers force mass website closures . Simon . de Bruxelles . . 6 December 2007. 16 October 2010. 28 December 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20211228110753/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/. live.
  13. Web site: Dollamore Ltd.. Businessweek. 15 October 2010. 29 October 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20101029181643/http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=47548141. dead.
  14. News: The Sequel to the Most Aggressive Webhost . Goldman . Alex . ISP-Planet . 21 October 2008 . 15 October 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20101014163938/http://www.isp-planet.com/hosting/2008/fasthosts+free+offer.html . 14 October 2010 .
  15. News: Hosted clouds Rise for FastHosts. MicroScope.co.uk. Alex. Scroxton. 30 March 2010. 15 October 2010. 28 November 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20101128073726/http://www.microscope.co.uk/news/reseller-news/hosted-clouds-rise-for-fasthosts/. live.
  16. Web site: Our Founder Sponsor . The Great Exhibition 2012 . 15 October 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100726104715/http://www.thegreatexhibition2012.co.uk/great-exhibition-2012/sponsors/our-founder-sponsor.aspx . 26 July 2010 .
  17. Web site: Rise is now part of the Outsourcery family . www.outsourcery.co.uk . 2021-12-28 . 18 October 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141018110722/http://www.outsourcery.co.uk/Outsourcery/Pages/Rise.aspx . live .
  18. Web site: FastHosts – A Leading UK Provider Targeting IT Professionals . HostAdvice. 18 July 2017. en-US. 2017-08-09. 2017-08-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20170809131803/https://hostadvice.com/blog/fasthosts-a-leading-uk-provider-targeting-it-professionals/. live.

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