Companies and other individuals who do not take action quickly to guard their brand identity risk losing the domain name to other companies or cybersquatters, says Hostway.

With 60 percent of the world population living in the Asia-Pacific region, and in excess of 400 million Internet users, companies may be dangering their pan-Asian product identity if they fail to register for their domain name, says Hostway. This can produce undermining of company trademarks and the costly re-acquisition of the name afterward.

Thomas Herbert, product manager at Hostway stated “With global brands such as Google investing strongly in this area, exemplified by its acquisition of a stake in Chinese social networking site Tianya, the Asian market is seeing significant potential for growth at the moment. Anyone who hasn’t yet registered shouldn’t waste any more time. The cost is minimal especially when you compare it to the cost of not registering.”

Throughout the land rush period, which is open until March 12, the .asia registry will consider all domain name registration applications as received simultaneously, giving companies the chance to bid on domains with numerous applicants. After a break to process applications, the live registration period will begin again on March 26 where registrations will be considered on a first-come-first-served basis.

Hostway’s North American division launched two .asia promotions earlier this month.

Hostway says that customers who pre-register .asia domain names that go to auction during the sunrise or land rush periods are entitled to obtain three percent cash back if their bid is successful. This offer only applies to bids with at least a payout of $30 under the cash back inducement, which compares to a $1,000 bid, says the company.

Additionally, until February 19, anybody who pre-registers under the land rush registration period for a .asia top-level domain name will get a $10 refund when the name is successfully registered, says Hostway. The standard annual registration price is $24.95 per year with a two-year minimum registration, however the promotion allows customers to get the first year of registration for $14.95.

Robert Birkner, general manager of Hostway Canada stated “We’re leading the industry with this .asia promotion to help our customers beat the competition for the best domain names. With three percent cash back on winning auctions and a $10 rebate, the more domain names you register, the more you save.”

Earlier this week, Hostway entered into a joint venture agreement with security solutions provider Alert Logic.

The offer features the most recent IBM servers which provide patented ‘X-Architecture’ technology. IBM System X and BladeCenter servers, featuring Intel’s dual-core Xeon processors, help advance energy management, optimize performance, reliability and manageability and potentially reduce the cost of ownership.

Specifically when using higher demand applications and intense Web serving Hostway has also doubled the allotted RAM quota for the servers. Enabling them to save over £300 on the entry-level Linux HW100 alone, customers can choose between their preferred Linux configuration or Windows 2003 Server. The entire range of dedicated server plans are backed by Hostway’s around the clock enterprise technical support team and its secure data center infrastructure in London’s Docklands.

Incorporating significantly reduced Web page load times facilitated by new Edge Caching techniques, the Web host also recently introduced its new content delivery network. Edge Caching says its patent-pending technology facilitates customers to decrease website abandonment by reducing the time that it takes for Web pages with large images or multimedia files to load.

Providing access to a complete SEO network reaching millions of consumers and journalists, AffinityWire will facilitate Hostway customers to issue press releases through Vocus’ PRWeb service.

Provided in an easily reached format, the features offered by the service include direct-to-consumer distribution, SEO and social media tools, podcasts and fully integrated multimedia content. The press releases are indexed by search engines such as Google News, Yahoo! News and Topix, and distributed through PRWeb’s RSS feeds and email alerts.

John Enright, VP of marketing and business development for Hostway stated “AffinityWire can now provide our ValueWeb SMB customers a powerful online press release distribution platform to help maximize their success and visibility in the highly competitive online marketplace. We are pleased to partner with PRWeb to offer this easy-to-use service in one central online place along with our Search Engine Optimization and Online Advertising services.”