A special promotion for webhosts backed by Microsoft has been extended after the initial offer was completely oversubscribed in the first few days. The extended promotion makes control panel software Helm available at 50% off its usual price.

Microsoft agreed to back the promotion after meeting with the Helm team in Seattle late last month. The offer is aimed to encourage more webhosts to build or expand their business on Windows.

Launched just last week, the promotion was so successful that it had to be extended almost immediately. Only 300 licences were initially guaranteed at the promotional price, but within the first three days over 700 licences had been requested, and the offer was extended temporarily. The Microsoft 50% off Helm promotion has now been extended even further to meet demand.

Mark Hall, co-founder and COO of WebHost Automation, the company which created Helm, said that demand was unprecedented. “We’ve always had very strong sales, as our product has proven popular with webhosts, but we’re thrilled with the response to the offer,” he said. “We’ve geared Helm towards helping webhosts reduce their costs, increase profitability and grow fast – all of which are the most important thing to any webhost. So we’re not surprised at the popularity of this promotion.”

Hall says that the Microsoft 50% off Helm promotion is likely to run for “a few weeks”, but he can’t be certain when the offer will close. “With a free upgrade to Helm 4 included in the offer, any webhost even contemplating using Helm would be mad not to get hold of licences now,” he said.

Hall says that feedback from the Helm community is very good: “Helm offers a very high level of automation – in fact much higher than anything else on the market – meaning that it is a huge boost for webhosts of any size. Once they start using it, they don’t turn back.”

Hall and his fellow co-founder Adam Saunders developed Helm after launching their own webhosting business four years ago. He said: “When we set up our business, we wanted to host on Windows, but couldn’t find a control panel which offered us the features we needed to run the business efficiently. So we developed Helm, and from the sales we’ve achieved ever since, we know we got it right.”

“As well as offering superior levels of automation, we also wanted to ensure that Helm was considerably less expensive than anything else on the market,” said Hall. “So realistic pricing has always been a key part of our strategy.”

Catch the Microsoft 50% off Helm promotion at www.webhostautomation.com/50pc

For further information, contact Mark Hall: mark.hall@webhostautomation.com

WebHost Automation Limited is based in Bristol, United Kingdom, and has developed Helm, the only true multi-server control panel software for Windows. Since startup in 2002, WebHost Automation has grown steadily, and now has customers in well over 130 countries. The Helm community can be found online at forums.webhostautomation.com