Virtual Internet, one of the UK's leading providers of business web hosting, today announced its acquisition by Active ISP, the pan-European provider of hosting solutions for small and medium sized businesses. Virtual Internet joins the Active ISP Group, one of the largest web hosting operations in Europe, with a combined turnover in excess of 26 million euros, servicing over 200,000 businesses and trading in over 15 European countries.

Today's announcement marks the successful completion of the first phase of Virtual Internet's long-term strategy to significantly scale-up its European operations and continue to enhance the quality of its existing Windows and Linux advanced hosting products.

Virtual Internet now moves into a prime position to take advantage of the expected resurgence of the web hosting market in Europe and has an edge over its UK competitors in terms of scale, resources and sustainability. The added confidence of a solid management team, funding and strategic direction gives customers a one-stop-shop for hosting and the ability to scale-up as their Internet business grows.

The last 12 months have seen Virtual Internet boost its client list with the addition of heavyweights such as the Columbia Tristar, Abbey National, SAAB dealers and Electronic Arts, many of whom opted for its high-end or enterprise hosting solutions. The company has focused on improving service quality and management controls, has moved into profitability, reorganised its accounting systems, and extended its product lines into enterprise, fully managed hosting.

With long-term stability and quality of service now topping the list of requirements for companies choosing a web host in current economic conditions, Virtual Internet is confident that its deal with Active ISP will ensure further high-profile client wins over the coming months.

Existing clients will also benefit from the news, with plans already underway for Virtual Internet to ramp up development of services to include new billing and online payment facilities, new control panel management features, Microsoft Windows 2003 (ASP.NET) hosting solutions, media streaming and to significantly increase its portfolio of Managed Services into Sun's latest blade servers.

Commenting on today's announcement, Mike Gordon, Managing Director of Virtual Internet, said:

"We are delighted to be joining forces with one of Europe's most prominent web hosting groups - this gives us a huge advantage over our competition here in the UK. At a time when many of our competitors are finding themselves unable to live up to expectations we are continuing to strive ahead in all the areas of service and operational excellence."

Eric Tolsma, CEO of Active ISP: "Virtual Internet is a great addition to Active ISP. Although we have been serving the UK remotely for a number of years, we are now in a position to fully compete in this important European market. Virtual Internet and Active share a number of important core values. Both companies have experienced and dedicated employees and are focussed on bringing value to our customers."

Virtual Internet will continue to trade under the same name and there will be no changes to its management team. Direction will be provided by the Active ISP board, which includes industry figures such as Anthony Bay, who previously held the position of Vice President of Microsoft's digital media division.


About Active ISP

Active ISP is the leading pan-European provider of hosting solutions for small and medium sized businesses. The company provides basic and complex managed hosting services, domain name registration, e-commerce solutions and ASP services. Active ISP ASA was founded in May 1998 in Oslo, Norway. Following the incorporation of VI the group administrates over 300,000 domain names, 100,000 shared hosted webs and 450 dedicated servers. Active ISP specialises in the development of standardised solutions with a high degree of user-friendliness and scalability.

www.activeisp.com
www.activeisp.org


About Virtual Internet

Virtual Internet is a leading pan-European Internet service provider for high quality web hosting products, with services including enterprise managed services, shared and dedicated web hosting and e-commerce solutions. Virtual Internet is focused on delivering exceptional customer service along with highly resilient hosting products and counts some of the world's leading brands such as Compaq, Sun, Cisco, Microsoft, and Alteon Websystems as its strategic technology partners.

www.vi.net
www.vimanaged.net