Houston, Texas-based corporate applications hosting company Interliant Inc is expanding into Europe. Interliant, which also provides wide area network facilities management, is to build a European data center in the UK early next year, and intends to build its sevices around hardware from Compaq Computer Corp. Interliant was founded in 1993 with a focus on hosting Lotus Notes applications over wide area networks, has diversified into hosting electronic mail hubs and Web sites using the Lotus Domino server software. The privately held company buys network capacity from Equant Inc, formerly Scitor Inc, which resells the spare network capacity from the SITA airline communications network, and from CompuServe Corp, Sprint Corp, and Cable & Wireless Plc, which it then resells on to its customers. Interliant supplies wide area connections using X.25, X.28, ISDN, Frame Relay and directly over the internet. The company claims to be growing revenues at around 20% per month, but won’t reveal details of its revenues. Customers are charged a flat fee for the hosting of applications, and usage-dependant rates for the network use. In Europe, Interliant will face its main competition from IBM Corp, and from incumbent telecommunications firms such as Deutsche Telecom and British Telecommunications Plc, which have recently started to offer similar applications hosting services. But Interliant says that the advantage it holds over its competitors is that it has grown up hosting Notes applications, which form its core business.
