Web Hosting Philippines

Another web hosting review now from Web hosting Philippines. The web hosting company today that we are going to review offers a wide range of services that also includes windows server. Which is really rare these days.

Rating Out Of Ten

Performance    7
Reliability    8
Customer Relations    8
Features    9
Control Panel     4

Introduction

Easy CGI has a superior intuitive site, which provide potential clients with easier access to ordering information. They also offer the most unique product offerings. They offer Coldfusion, ASP, and even the new ASP.net technologies. Besides web hosting they also offer co-location, which shows that they are no small player.
If you need Windows 2000 hosting, the average provider will charge you around $20 or more per month with a setup fee. Easy CGI is an exception to that, with Windows 2000 hosting accounts starting at $7.96 per month. It comes with 3 GB of space and 50 GB of traffic. For storage, we have not found a company offering more. For Windows web hosting, Easy CGI is a very solid choice.

Price and Cost Effectiveness

Easy CGI was founded in 1998 and located in New York. Over the years, they have expanded their product offerings. They offer the most comprehensive Windows web hosting package we have ever seen. Their packages all come with ASP, MS Access and access to a shared ssl certificate. Plus they were the first company we have seen to offer ASP.net to the public. They also offer plenty of flexibility to their web hosting plans. You can add MsSQL and Coldfusion at any time.

Control Panel

One of the greatest weaknesses in this company is their control panel. Easy CGI’s control panel is very limited in what it is able to do. For one, it lacks much of the advanced features that are otherwise found in other control panels such as web creation tools, setting directories as CGI readable, etc. Their control panel is very basic, in that it only includes mailbox editing, and billing information. Rather than using a professional control panel software package with lots of features, they decided to make their own which is very basic. However, if you do not plan to use a control panel, then this should not matter. It does have all the basic functions, just nothing more and the interface needs some tweaking.

Data Center

We were unable to obtain much information about their date center. We do know though that they operate a data center and it is located in the same building as their corporate headquarters. This means they can easily solve problems if they were to occur.

Customer Relations

EasyCGI has improved their customer service dramatically over the past few years. With their vast years of experience in the industry, all of their service professionals have sufficient knowledge in the products they sell. You can ask them anything about the packages and they will answer promptly without hesitation. When we asked about Windows web hosting including version numbers of software and whether or not it would support our Windows ASP application, they were able to provide competent answers. EasyCGI also provides extended support hours from 9 to 5 six days a week.

Conclusion

All in all, Easy CGI is a viable web hosting provider. It offers everything one would expect in web hosting company. Even though they have a much weaker control panel than most web hosting companies, they offer consumers a great value in web hosting and they have above average technical support. They are definitely a choice to consider when you are seeking for a Windows web hosting provider or if you need a lot of storage space.

As you are fully aware by now, a majority of web hosting companies will lower the price of your monthly hosting charges the longer you extend or subscribe to their web hosting services. Normally most web hosts such as Lunarpages and Ipowerweb charge $7.95 if you prepay for one year of web hosting, but that price drops once extend it by another year and it will drop again if you extend for 3 years. The reason is because web hosting companies prefer customers who stay with them and they want the money upfront so they can purchase additional servers and equipment. Just a couple of users going with this plan can help pay for the cost of the server. Thus, the marginal revenue of the server will increase as more users are added to the server because the initial cost of the server has already been paid off by the initial users who subscribed to the services and prepay on a bi-annual or annual basis.

But is making an extended payment option always the right choice? If you choose a annual or bi-annual subscription you can save between 20-40% per month, but if the company goes bankrupt after 4 months (the grace period when you can dispute a charge with a credit card company) then you are out of luck for the prepayment of services you have already paid. Worst yet, if the company provides bad service you will be stuck with them for years before you can get out since most companies have severe penalties for leaving the services early.

The best option is to prepay annually though if the company is reputable and has been in business for a long time. If they have been in the business for a long time and they provide good service initially then more than likely they will stay in business for years to come. Better yet, they will get more customers without advertising because their customer service is above par in the industry. The best predictor is to look for reviews of business web hosting companies before going with that web host. The worst thing to look for in a web host is value = best bang for the buck, because most likely they cannot afford to hire the proper staffs and their server reliability will be below par in the industry.

In time they will go out business because once their merchant account is out of service they can’t bill customers and they will not have much revenue left to sustain their business.
You can also look at the BBB report of the company to ensure that their level of customer service isn’t degrading. If customer service is degrading then it is a sign they that they are running out of funds and they are either not able to support the growth of the company or they are running out of funds and are being forced to let people go. This is a first sign that the company is heading to a downward spiral and will eventually go out of business.