EnterpriseDB has enhanced PostgreSQL, the world's most advanced open source database, to create the award-winning EnterpriseDB Advanced Server. An enterprise-class database that can run applications written for Oracle unchanged, EnterpriseDB Advanced Server performs between 50% and 200% better than PostgreSQL. EnterpriseDB also offers a comprehensive suite of tools for developers and DBAs and world-class, around-the-clock technical support.

Over the past three years, the company's staff, including its Asia Pacific presence, has steadily grown. Today, there are more than 90 EnterpriseDB employees in the Asia Pacific region and more than 130 EnterpriseDB employees worldwide.

Leading organizations, including Atomogy, EnerNOC, Perlustro, Proxicom, Sony Online Entertainment, Sun Microsystems, and Vonage, have chosen EnterpriseDB databases.

The company has raised more than US$28.5 million from leading venture capitalists, including Charles River Ventures, Fidelity Ventures, Sony Online Entertainment, and Valhalla Partners, making EnterpriseDB the world's leading provider of enterprise-class, PostgreSQL-based products and services.

Roger Durn to Head Asia Pacific Operations

Industry veteran Roger Durn will lead EnterpriseDB's Asia Pacific operations from the new Hong Kong office. Durn will immediately begin expanding the company's Asia Pacific presence with local sales and technical support personnel throughout the region. Durn will also begin to form strategic relationships with ISV partners in the region.

"During the last two years, enterprises in the Asia Pacific region, especially in Japan, China, India, and Korea, have increasingly deployed open source software, and that trend is expected to continue," said Durn. "EnterpriseDB, which is based on the open source PostgreSQL database, will be an excellent choice for Asia Pacific enterprises and ISVs attracted to the benefits of open source software."

Previously, Durn was vice president, Asia Pacific operations, for SilverStream Software, where he was responsible for the company's business throughout the Asia Pacific region, including in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, Mainland China, Japan, and Korea. Prior to joining SilverStream, Roger also held executive positions at Sybase and the Powersoft in the Asia Pacific region and was instrumental in expanding the sales of development tools and databases.

EnterpriseDB's Market

Forrester Research, a leading independent technology and market research company, recently reported that open source databases will continue to gain traction over closed source databases as the features and functionality of the open source offerings improve and as enterprise adoption of open source databases continues. In the same report, Forrester estimated the open source database market to be US$300 million and forecasted its likely growth to US$1 billion by 2008.

Partnering with the Best

EnterpriseDB has strategic partnerships with leading companies, including Alfresco, Continuent, JasperSoft, JBoss, Novell, SugarCRM, and many others. Lists of EnterpriseDB partners are available at http://www.enterprisedb.com/partners/index.do .

An Award-Winning Company

Recently at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, the Linux community's premier event, EnterpriseDB was awarded the Product Excellence Award in the Best Database Solution category, besting Oracle and many other leading commercial and open source database providers. This is the second consecutive year that EnterpriseDB has received this prestigious honor.

In 2006, EnterpriseDB was also named to the AlwaysOn Top 100 Private Companies and Red Herring 100 North America lists, and the company was a finalist for both the Jolt Product Excellence and Productivity Award and the CODiE Award in the Best Database Management category.

Asia Payment Systems, Inc. (OTCBB: APYM) ("Asia Payments") today announced that its wholly owned foreign enterprise in Shanghai, Asia Payment Systems (China) Co. Ltd. ("Asia Payments China"), has signed a binding agreement to acquire the business operations of Global Uplink Communications Ltd. ("Global Uplink China"), a Chinese company based in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, and at the same time, its wholly owned subsidiary in Hong Kong, Asia Payment Systems (Hong Kong) Ltd. ("Asia Payments HK"), has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Global Uplink Ltd. ("Global Uplink HK"), a Hong Kong incorporated company owned by the shareholders of Global Uplink China.

Global Uplink China has grown over the past five years as a successful business in business processes outsourcing (BPO), loyalty programs and customer relations management (CRM) and related services. It operates a 200-person call centre in Guangzhou and is in the process of expanding to Shanghai, Beijing and other major cities in China. Global Uplink HK acts as its marketing arm in Hong Kong to service Global Uplink China's clients in Hong Kong and Macau. Its current client base includes financial institutions and multi-national corporations operating in China and Hong Kong.

Mr. KK Ng, President and CEO of Asia Payments, said, "Global Uplink China is a well managed company and with these transactions Asia Payments will quickly establish a significant presence in the Southern China market as well being well positioned to expand its business in other major cities in China."

Mr. Ng continued, "Global Uplink's existing strong customer base in China and Hong Kong will provide significant revenue for Asia Payments in 2007 and we intend to capitalize on this base to offer processing services for payment transactions, as well as payment cards and loyalty-rewards cards."

Mr. Chen Yu Hua, Founder, Director and General Manager of Global Uplink, said, "We have cooperated closely with Asia Payments over the past several months to assess our mutual China opportunities and to identify the steps to implement our plans in 2007. We are confident that by becoming part of the Asia Payments family the combined strength of our expanded organization will greatly increase our ability to achieve increased revenues from the China market."

The agreement with Global Uplink China calls for (i) the purchase by Asia Payments China of all of the assets of Global Uplink China's operating centre in Guangzhou, (ii) the transfer of all the staff of Global Uplink China to Asia Payments China, and (iii) the granting of an option by the shareholders of Global Uplink China to Asia Payments China for Asia payments China to acquire all the shares of Global Uplink China in the future and (iv) the appointment of Asia Payments China as its exclusive provider of data processing and operation related services, for a total cash consideration of Rmb. 1,500,010. The agreement with the shareholders of Global Uplink HK calls for the purchase of 100% of Global Uplink HK by Asia Payments HK for a cash consideration of HK$500,000.

All formalities and final documentation are expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2006.

Hong Kong, China, Asia - new carrier services aimed a reinforcing e-mail, DSL support and hosted IP offerings.

First, BellSouth unveiled offerings for its FastAccess Business DSL service.

The products include Business Domain Email, shared Web hosting and business-class support.

Business Domain Name Email lets customers who purchase a FastAccess Business DSL product be eligible to receive a free new domain name and custom e-mail account such as sales@mygrowingbusiness.com. Customers will have the ability to purchase additional custom e-mail accounts individually or in a package, BellSouth says.

Shared Web hosting allows small-business customers to economically expand their visibility and reach by building a Web presence for online commerce and customer communications, BellSouth says.

Packages start at $7.95 per month and provide options for bandwidth and disk space. E-commerce features also are available for businesses to take orders online.

Shared Web hosting services receive continuous network and technical support from BellSouth, the carrier says.

Business-class support provides premium services for business DSL customers.This includes a 24-hour repair guarantee, and a continuous dedicated business technical support desk.

Customers can receive a credit for every day they are out of service more than 24 hours plus an additional 10% of their monthly charge.

These services follow last month's rollout of an Internet security suite of products for residential and business DSL customers.

Meanwhile, MCI is adding DSL service to its enterprise access offerings in six more markets, including China.

The company offers DSL as a less-expensive alternative to dedicated leased lines and other forms of data access, aiming primarily at smaller branch offices of multinational companies, as well as back-up connectivity to offices that have a leased line or other access, says Myles Gene Kearon, MCFs global business partner manager. The carrier is trying to make DSL available in as many countries as possible, he says.

DSL was newly available last week in Thailand, the Philippines, Israel and Hong Kong. It will be available in China and Singapore next month.

In China, MCI will provide Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) through partner China Network Communications Group Corp. (China Netcom), China's second largest fixed-line telecom carrier. The service will be available in most major metropolitan areas across all provinces and will offer a downstream speed of 512K bit/sec and an upstream speed of 128K bit/sec, according to MCI.

Pacific Internet Ltd. is MCI's partner for DSL in Thailand, the Philippines and Hong Kong. In those countries, speeds will vary In Israel, MCI is working with Golden Lines, offering DSL services ranging from 64K bit/sec to 1.5M bit/sec. MCI also plans to offer DSL in Malaysia and Peru over the next several months, the company says. In Singapore, as in Australia and some other countries, DSL will be provided by local MCI operating companies, Kearon said.

MCI also offers a DSL option in the U.S. and in Belgium, France, Germany Italy the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.

Finally,XO Communications and NEXL Network Systems have announced that they will partner to offer businesses managed hosting services.

The two companies will offer services combining XO's data centers and IP network with NEXL's managed infrastructure computing services.

Under a multiyear agreement, XO and NEXL will co-market and sell each others services through XO direct and indirect sales channels and NEXLs direct sales force. NEXL becomes the provider of managed services to XO managed hosting customers, and XO becomes a preferred provider of data center and network services to NEXL customers.

The services will be targeted at new customers looking to outsource the hosting and management of their Web-based applications. Customers will be hosted within XO data centers connected to the XO IP network.

Netopia, a market leader in broadband gateways and service delivery software, today announced its eSite Builder service, an online solution enabling Web developers to cost-effectively build, manage, and deploy fully customizable Web sites for their clients.

eSite Builder is designed to make it easier and more efficient to produce, deploy, and manage from one to thousands of privately-labeled Web sites. For independent Web developers and service providers, it offers greater versatility in creating and managing a high volume of custom-branded Web sites in less time -- increasing efficiency, boosting client loyalty, and drastically improving per-site profitability.

"By making our eSite Builder platform available to a wider audience, we're enabling service providers and developers to take advantage of the ease and efficiency that this service brings to Web development," said Jeff Porter, vice president of product marketing for Netopia. "Users can leverage our service to cost-effectively deploy Web site design and management services while generating increased revenue."

Unlike conventional Web development tools, which require users to install and configure software, eSite Builder runs in an online environment, which means all functions occur in an online browser via an innovative ActiveX/Java console. To start developing a Web site, developers can choose from hundreds of design templates, which can then be modified using "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) editing tools, with no HTML or XML experience required.

eSite Builder service features include:

Click-It Editing(TM): easily create and edit Web sites with point-and-click WYSIWYG editing by simply dragging and dropping content boxes, images, and other elements to customize the look and feel of the site.

Dynamic Template and Style Sheets: through eSite Builder's asset library, images and content can be sourced from a single location, while the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) functionality ensures design consistency throughout the site.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Wizard: brings greater site visibility on popular online search engines through automated analysis of site content and META tags.

Scaleable, Standards-Based Technology: using the latest Web-hosting technology, including Java, Flash, and XML.

Multi-language Support: for creating multilingual sites, eSite Builder can create individual pages that support any language.

Ensim, the leading supplier of service enablement and automation software for hosted IP and application services, today announced that it will offer Ensim Pro X for Windows, the industry's premier server management and automation control panel, free of charge as part of a promotion with Microsoft. The Ensim Pro X for Windows Promotion begins immediately.

Ensim Pro X for Windows is the industry's leading single-server hosting automation and control panel solution for hosted web sites, email, and online applications. As part of this promotional program, Ensim has launched Ensim Pro Version 10.2, which incorporates several updates to the product, including Microsoft SQL Server 2005 support as well as a new web services API, enabling third party developers to more easily integrate their applications with Ensim Pro.

The highlights of the Ensim Pro X for Windows Promotion are:

--  Ensim Pro X for Windows is made available for use at no charge
--  Users get an unlimited domain license
--  Product is free for up to a year from registration of the promotional
    license
--  Program runs Jan 1, 2007 through June 30, 2007
    

"By providing Ensim Pro for free, this promotion helps support Microsoft's goal of minimizing the barriers hosting providers face in growing their businesses," said John Zanni, director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft Corp. "We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Ensim to ensure that hosting providers can take full advantage of the growing demand for Windows-based applications."

With an updated web services API and a comprehensive Power Tools framework, the free Ensim Pro X promotional license is attractive for developers. They can integrate their existing applications with the control panel, giving them the ability to drive new applications using the Windows platform. This benefits service providers and their customers.

"We are delighted that Microsoft has chosen to work with us to bring the most robust Web hosting solution to an even broader market," said Francois Depayras, vice president of sales and marketing at Ensim. "This promotion allows hosters to easily enter the rapidly growing market for Windows with a comprehensive control panel, giving them the necessary tools to be successful in this industry."

Ensim Pro X for Windows includes all the necessary tools needed to build and grow a professional hosting business, including:

--  Microsoft .NET Framework support for ASP.NET hosting
--  Extensive License Manager - allowing the management and deployment of
    licenses with ease
--  Advanced customization tools - including an open API and custom skin
    development kit to extend and differentiate your hosting business
--  Extensibility with Power Tools - a powerful installer that allows
    users to easily add the most popular web applications to their site. Third
    party developers can easily integrate .NET and php-based applications using
    the Ensim Pro Power Tools Framework.
--  Automation Modules to quickly set up new users with minimal burden on
    your technical staff, including a professionally designed user interface
    and quick start guides
--  A vast directory of more than 100 complementary solutions to further
    automate your hosting business
    

The Ensim Pro X for Windows Promotion is available immediately on www.ensim.com and select channel partners' Web sites.

Having just lost control of my domain name, can you advise how to avoid cybersquatters?

Domain names, the core part of the web and e-mail addresses that we type every day, are big business. Competition for memorable ones is strong, and even competition for ones that are a hamfisted mistype away from being memorable is pretty feverish. As per the column concerning web hosting a few weeks ago, it's clear that the process of registering and hanging on to a domain is shrouded in mystery for many - and where there's mystery, there's usually a few people getting ripped off.

The first sound piece of advice comes from Jim Player: "Don't automatically buy domain names from your ISP, or your web-hosting provider. If your relationship with them sours, they could be at risk." Indeed, it has recently taken me a year to get full control of a domain name I registered some years ago; in the end my impatience with the company in question forced me to cough up a completely unnecessary "transferring fee".

The lesson is clear: go with a seller that offers direct and transparent access to all the settings related to your domain name - renewal, transfers and hosting. Shop around, and seek recommendations; easydns.com and dreamhost.com are two US-based services with a no-nonsense approach.

It's a cut-throat, first-come-first-served world, and Jayne Brookes points out - from her own bitter experience - that you should keep that domain idea to yourself. "Then, if you find that it's available, just buy it. It should only cost between [pound]5 and [pound]15 for one year, and you can bet that if you don't buy it today, someone else will tomorrow."

Of course, there are unscrupulous types who register domains in the hope of levering more money out of people they know will pay up - the dreaded cy-bersquatters - but they're not the kind of people you should be doing business with. If that domain name is central to your business plan, consider changing the plan. If you believe you have a legal right to the name, the registrar of the domain will have a dispute resolution department - but the process will inevitably involve lengthy legal wrangling.

Once you've bought the domain, remember that you have merely hired it from the registry. Paul Lomax from Fibranet, whose freeparking.co.uk domain service is highly rated, has a word of advice for keeping hold of your domain purchase; simply don't forget to renew it. "The easiest way to lose a domain is to change your e- mail address and forget to tell the registrar. We try to help by reminding people to keep their details updated, and ironically we get a handful of customers complaining that they don't want junk mail from us! You can't win."

When will the green web hosts come to Hong Kong? Will they ever?

Plenty of environmentally conscious entrepreneurs already recycle paper and computers. They might even drive hybrid vehicles and look for ways to reduce the impact of their businesses on the earth. And now there are ways to continue that philosophy on the internet by getting onboard with a green web hosting provider. That's right, solar and wind-powered web sites.

Affordable Internet Services, is a green web-hosting service that has been using solar power since 2001. They have 120 solar panels mounted on the roof of their data center, solar tubes providing light during the day and a large bank of batteries storing the power to keep their servers running at all times. "We wanted to help the environment, but we also wanted to get rid of our growing electric bill," says technology manager Phil Nail. They've attracted a variety of clients from around the world that feel strongly about the environment and want to demonstrate that commitment to their web customers.

A really good green web hosting provider should offer all the amenities of any other host. Look for a company that performs regular backups, monitors its servers and has good uptime. Using a green provider doesn't have to cost more, either. AISO, for example, offers packages starting at $9.95 per month. Some other leading providers to look into are EcoSky wind-powered Locomotive Media and Solar Data Centers.

Expect this niche to stay small. Says Nail, "I don't see any of the large companies going this route because of the amount of solar panels they would need to generate enough electricity." Still, entrepreneurs looking for a green web hosting alternative have several options to choose from.

Due to the Earthquake in Taiwan on 26 December 2006, Hong Kong's overseas telecommunications services had been severely affected by the damage of several regional submarine cables, hindering the services provided by all Hong Kong's Internet Service Providers.

Hong Kong Broadband Network Ltd. ("HKBN"), a wholly owned subsidy of City Telecom (HK) Limited , with rapid response from staff and business partners, was one of the first service providers to restore overseas telecommunications service by 11:42 am, 28th December, 2006.

HKBN's rapid restoration was due mainly to the rigorous design of the HKBN network that ensured there are always 30% over-provisioning of bandwidth, equivalent to a 1.3 times bandwidth capacity over the average bandwidth utilization for customers. Although the recent disruption has lowered HKBN's bandwidth provisioning, this over-provisioning design had come into force thereby minimizing the impact to customers.

Whilst HKBN customers were able to resume their essential Internet services within two days, the majority of Hong Kong Internet users are still negatively impacted, even until today. This highlights the deficiency in the industry's existing telecommunication services' arrangements & contingency planning.

Appreciating the importance of communications, HKBN announced the launch of "bbAid" to those are who are still suffering from overseas bandwidth outage, providing immediate broadband service aid. Effective from 8th January 2007, PCCW Netvigator's broadband customers can register at hotline 3498 3498, where HKBN will install bb100 service (symmetric 100Mbps access) within 24 hours, with up to 200 installations daily. The "bbAid" is offered to provide immediate outbound communication services to those with urgent needs, with no contract commitment and installation fee required, and services charge being HK$10/day (US$1.30), with minimal charge is HK$20 (US$2.60). Should no contract renewal or cancellation notice be received from customer within 30 days after installation, such service will be terminated automatically after the said period.

Chairman of HKBN, Ricky Wong said, "As the pioneer of Hong Kong's telecommunication services, valuing the criticality of overseas telecommunications, we hope the bbAid will serve to relief the stress and inconvenience for consumers that are suffering from outage of international bandwidth."

Digital Rights Director offers turnkey media distribution platform that gives media owners everything needed to securely sell digital audio and video files. Customers are given their own Online Media Store with web-based administration panel that allows owner to customize store, edit or create media rules, and manage media, customers, newsletters, and orders. Service targets independent musicians and film artists as well as distance learning and corporate training applications.

Digital Rights Director customers are given their own "Online Media Store" with a web-based administration panel that allows the media owner to easily customize the store, edit or create "media rules", and manage media, customers, newsletters and orders.

The service allows a content owner to simply browse their PC for an available media file, assign a title, description, category, and delivery methods depending on whether the media should be streamed or downloaded.

Then the content owner assigns the media rules and price options he wishes to assign and with the click of the "Submit" button, the media file is automatically uploaded, packaged, DRM protected, and immediately made available in an included eCommerce web storefront with the assigned rule options.

The media rules enforce the guidelines under which a purchaser is allowed to use the media, and for a media file to be uploaded once, but sold with multiple rule and pricing options. For example, a video may be uploaded a single time, but sold with 1-play, 10-plays or unlimited plays option and each option could have its own price.

"This is unlike any other service we are aware of," says Jonathan Castleman, President of CyberOptic Group and former professional musician himself, "Customers get their own online storefront on their own domain, they get to determine their own delivery and playback options, set their own prices, and collect and keep their own money."

"All the media is protected against unauthorized access and distribution and all a customer needs to understand is how to fill out a simple web form." Castleman added.

Digital Rights Director comes with literally everything needed to quickly start selling audio & video files securely online including a web hosting account with a dedicated IP address, Windows streaming server for streaming media files, a robust eCommerce storefront, and DRM packaging and license delivery all available through a easy-to-use web interface.

Buying the right web hosting Hong Kong solution is a very important decision. Whether your website is for an online business, an information resource, a discussion forum, or for sharing views on a hobby or interest; you must use a web hosting service that will allow everyone else to view your creation.

It is web hosting company that empowers you to share information, sell prodcuts and services, and interact with people through a web site. Trying to choose a web host can be a very confusing exercise, especially when you consider the growing number of Hong Kong web hosts and their confusing advertisements. Therefore, it is important that before jumping in, you go through some sort of a research process for selecting the most appropriate Hong Kong web hosting company for your Internet presence.

In the heyday of the Internet giving things away for free was so fashionable that a lot of companies burned through millions of dollars giving things away, before most of them eventually went bankrupt, in Hong Kong as much as elsewhere. If you wish to run an e-commerce site or would like to generate an income from your web site, it is recommended that you seek a good paid host.
There will always be the desire to keep expenses down or to cut corners, particularly the case with Hong Kong web hosting providers, but one must take the complete picture into account. On the Internet the first impression a visitor (potential customer) gets is everything. They can easily go to another web site to seek information or to make a purchase, so you have to keep your visitors on your site. You want them to see a professional business or information web site that they can trust, not one that is too cheap to pay for a professional service.

Your particular needs are crucial in determining the kind of hosting you need as Hong Kong web hosting comes in many different flavors and at equally numerous price points. There are many Hong Kong web hosts who try to justify charging higher than average prices by offering a vast assortment of extra features. Many people don't need all these bells and whistles and never end up taking advantage of them. But by offering tons of extras that almost no one will use, some Hong Kong web hosts can push up their rates. So its important that you know what services you require, shop for them by scrutinizing and reviewing the web hosts you come across.

It is important to keep in mind that like any other Internet business, Hong Kong web hosting has grown leaps and bounds over the last decade. In this time thousands of big and small companies have started offering various Internet services. But with the downturn of the early 2000s many of these companies have struggled and some have even gone under. Even with all of the consolidation in the web hosting industry, there are still tens of thousands of hosting companies providing various levels of hosting services.

As technology evolves the Hong Kong web hosts are changing as well, providing various services in addition to plain vanilla Hong Kong web hosting. If you run an e-commerce site, a more comprehensive content web site or a large web forum community, there are many tools that could help in your ventures. Web hosting reviews, opinions and checklists can be helpful in finding the right Hong Kong web hosting service provider for your needs.