SmartyHost targets channel with blogware

Melbourne web hosting provider SmartyHost has launched a corporate and personal blogging package to resellers.

Anoosh Manzoori, managing director at SmartyHost, said the webhost had released an "all-inclusive" blogging application, dubbed SmartyBlog, to its customers and "couple of hundred" Australian resellers.

He said SmartyHost would include domain name registration, so SmartyBlog users would get a level of branding with their blogs mostly unavailable to standard freeware users.

"The SmartyBlog package is part of our reseller program, so [resellers] can fully badge and brand the SmartyBlog as their own and offer it to their customers, with a 20 percent discount," Manzoori said.

Resellers could offer open-source-based SmartyBlog at any price they chose, he added.

SmartyHost was providing free company-style domain name registration with the package and that was "for life" as long as the customer stayed with SmartyHost, Manzoori said.

"We're providing 50MB of space and a blogging program, so they can go out there and create the blog itself," he said. "We think it's a huge market."

SmartyBlog was "completely customisable" or less-technical users could create their blogs using one of the standard templates. Support and RSS feed functionality was also included, Manzoori said.

The webhost recently got .au Domain Administration (auDA) accreditation, enabling it to offer the domain name registration service. SmartyHost would also soon seek resellers for domain name registration, he said.

Manzoori said SmartyHost had doubled in the past two years. Today, it had around 20,000 customers, which made SmartyHost one of Australia's top three webhosts, he claimed.

Basic webhosting packages included 150MB of web space and 150 email accounts for $15 a month or $144 a year. ADSL broadband starts at $60 per month with uncapped downloads.

"Smartyhost is also able to offer resellers a 35 percent discount [on webhosting], allowing considerable margin for the channel," Manzoori said.