Marcin, can you tell us a bit about home.pl and the products and services that you offer? Marcin Kusmierz: We are among the largest and fastest growing hosting companies in Europe. A significant part of our future growth is built on Microsoft technologies, in addition to the Linux-based services we have offered since our inception in 1997.
We first started building out our Windows based hosting business on top of Windows Server 2003, and we have begun to offer hosting services on Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7.0. We also offer Microsoft Access and SQL Server databases to our customers.
Why did you decide to offer Windows based hosting in addition to your other offerings? Marcin: As a service provider, it's important for us to keep up with the technologies that our customers prefer. A lot of companies and IT pros use Microsoft Windows Server, and .NET and IIS are increasingly important technologies in the IT field.
We also want to give our customers the opportunity to utilize new technology such as IIS 7.0, as well as to show the possibilities that exist for hosting Web applications on top of Windows. Providing this type of choice helps us to be more competitive and to meet or exceed customer expectations.
How did you get your Windows business of the ground when you first started? Marcin: It was actually simpler than we thought it might be, and Microsoft was a great help. Of course, learning how to do familiar tasks with new tools took some effort, particularly around instrumenting the platform. Still, getting up to speed with the new operating system wasn't a prohibitively large effort.
So has Microsoft has been a strong partner in getting the Windows based portion of your business started and growing? Marcin: Yes, they've been great. We have had excellent support from a number of different Microsoft employees. We have received a lot of training opportunities, and we have also gotten marketing support that helps us promote our Windows based services to customers.
What aspects of IIS 7.0 have you found to be beneficial to hosters? Marcin: The robustness and flexibility of the environment are very important to us. Enhanced delegation support is a big feature that we leverage. It allows us to delegate certain levels of administration out toward our customers. The other big thing is support for PHP on IIS 7.0, which helps us meet our customers' needs and wishes.
What benefits have you seen with Windows Server 2008 in general and how it impacts your hosting business? Marcin: We certainly appreciate the ability to install a scaled-back version where it makes sense using the Server Core edition of Windows Server 2008. In addition, we are looking forward to the plans to support ASP.NET applications on the Server Core edition of Windows Server 2008 R2.
Have you had a chance to leverage Microsoft's support options for hosters, and what were your experiences like? Marcin: We have taken advantage of them, and our experiences have been quite positive. For example, one of our employees recently called Microsoft to ask about a concern he had around WMI interfaces. We were extremely impressed by how responsive they were, and the result was that we got a quick resolution to our problem that helped get us back on track.
Access to Linux source code lets you customize a distribution to meet particular needs. Do you feel limited by the fact that you don't have the same type of flexibility with Windows Server? Marcin: Not having access to the Windows source code isn't a significant limitation to us. Windows Server has very good management interfaces in WMI and the other management APIs that come with IIS. In fact, using these APIs and PowerShell in Windows Server 2008, we have a relatively simple means to manage the server that lets us establish any configuration we need.
Have you had any concerns about Windows reliability or security compared to Linux based implementations that you have deployed in the past? Marcin: I think Windows is just as reliable as Linux. Although you will sometimes hear that people have concerns about the security of Windows for hosters, I believe that it is fairly straightforward to deploy a secure system.
As with other operating systems, the level of security depends a great deal more on the human being who is securing it than the operating system itself. It is also true that the higher degree of complexity in administering Linux means that you can more easily make mistakes that could open security vulnerabilities in Linux based server.
Do you have any closing thoughts? Marcin: Adding Windows based hosting is an investment for us, and we are looking forward to increasing our revenues based on this investment. This is a new branch of the market for us, and we're looking forward to the potential of it for home.pl.
| 
