Over the last year, in this column, as well as
at conferences and with hosts, I’ve talked extensively about how
automation really lets you break free from the traditional
webhosting bonds and concentrate what makes your business tick.
We’ve looked at a lot of the new things that
you should be offering through your hosting business to attract
higher value customers.
Things that make you more money and better
profit.
Because those are the things that smart hosts
are always focussed on.
This leads me into what I want to talk about
this month - something new we’ve been working on that means faster
and easier addition of applications to websites.
And by that I mean often with just one click,
you can offer an amazing range of services, and hardly have to lift
a finger.
What we have envisaged for some time is a
greater range of products that you can offer your customers without
all the fussing around. To do that, we needed to find a way to make
simple snap-on applications.
They needed to be added almost instantaneously
to a site, meaning it could be up and running – and earning – in
mere seconds.
Well, now Helm 4 users are able to offer
customers exactly that using our new Application Pack Support!
In essence, this new development supports web
applications so that they can be quickly and easily installed into
any website. Should one of your customers decide they want to add
any new application, whether it’s a forum, blog, shopping cart or
site builder, they can now do it as simply as with just one
click!
I am sure you will see what this means to you
as a host.
It will be much easier for you to offer a wide
variety of great add-ons to your customers, without having to worry
about support or development!
For example, with our initial launch,
we put out application packs for DotNetNuke v3 and v4,
OSCommerce and ZenCart. With both the OSCommerce and ZenCart
versions coming with support for PayPal Express!
Anyone can develop application packs for
themselves and can share them with any other Helm 4 user they wish
to. WebHost Automation will be posting examples of applications
that have been developed on our forum. The forum will also be open
to all Helm 4 users who wish to post their developments on the
forum to share with other users as well.
We plan to release a lot more application
packs in the future, and have opened up our online forum for
people to post any new ones they develop too.
That way, with all these new ones being added
all the time, you can just download any that you want to be able to
offer your customers, and you’re ready to go!
Complete instructions on how to use
application pack, and how to develop your own are provided. WebHost
Automation will also provide open source files to enable full
freedom with development by users.
Adam Saunders
Founder and Chief Technical Officer
WebHost Automation Ltd.