The petitioners are claiming they are owed more than $10 million and that an auction sale "would have diminished the value of Escom's assets" according to a statement from their attorney, Meister Seelig & Fein LLP.

In the meantime, The People Against the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has appealed to the owners of sex.com to donate the domain name to them in order to promote their "Vegetarians are Sexy" campaign. PETA said the owners would enjoy a big tax write-off.

PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman wrote: "PETA has never hesitated to use sex to make people aware that going vegan is the best thing that you can do for animals, your body, and your lover, so it makes sense for Sex.com and PETA to hook up."

It reportedly sold for $14 million in 2006, but many consider that price tag way too high for today. But one never knows. Poker.org sold for a cool million recently and insure.com was sold for about $16 million last year.

Reports show that the site gets 120,000 unique visitors per month nowadays for nothing other than the name. In its heyday, however, sex.com cashed in $15,000 a day. Maybe the makers of Cialis or Viagra could scoop it up and retest that kind of money making prowess?

The auction is being run by Richard Maltz of Maltz Auctions who announced that all prospective bidders require a $1 million dollar certified check to participate. Here are the details should you have the means:

Auction Date & Time: Thursday, March 18th at 11:00 am.

Auction Location: Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, LLP, 156 West 56th Street, New York, New York 10019.

Further information: www.maltzauctions.com

The letter, purchased for $990 from England-based Dominic Winter Books Auction, was about how Princess Diana found comfort by practicing feng shui during one of the distressing periods in her life.

"We're interested in owning pieces of history, small pieces that influence our lives," said Rogoschewsky.

The Web hosting company has an interesting collection of memorabilia including a signed book by Albert Einstein, a dozen Pablo Picasso signatures and obscure video games systems.

BlackSun keeps the following quote from Einstein and the Universe on display: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

The 14 employees from the Saskatchewan-based Web hosting provider, which began operations in 1998, find inspiration from that each day, said Rogoschewsky.

Digital Realty Trust released survey information from 300 corporate IT decision makers on March 3rd indicating that a vast majority plan data center expansions in the next 12-24 months. In fact 83 percent will proceed with expansion by 2011 with 36 percent saying the plans will definitely take shape by the end of this year.

It was somewhat surprising that he need for additional power is the top reason for data center expansions, rising from fifth place on last year's survey to first place this year.

Melanie Posey, IDC Research Director, in her opening keynote, quickly alluded to the fact that large businesses will be able to navigate their own way in the Cloud market but SMBs need to partner with service providers. This, she noted, "is the way to gain access to new capabilities that wouldn't be accessible to small businesses otherwise.'' The key to success then, is to offer services or packages that eliminate the complexity for the end user.

The Fontainebleau Resort in Miami Beach is firmly on the radar of the thousand or more attendees and though I suspect most are thinking sun and sand initially, the focus will eventually gravitate to the Cloud.

Cloud Computing, Software-as-a-Service, Automation and Virtualization are concepts that may be new to some right now but those with a thirst for more information will find plenty available through February 22-24.

Many on hand will want to turn knowledge into profits ASAP. Expect no empty seats during Business Tracks such as Profiting from Software-as-a-Service delivered by an all-star hosting panel and How to launch and make money from Cloud Services from Parallels CTO, Matt Domo.

Although there are dozens of must-attend keynotes on the agenda, the tech-savvy will have to squeeze in Industry Tracks such as Will Online Backup grow to be your biggest SaaS business? and Google Services for Websites.

So while Parallels has mapped out an agenda for all to 'Profit from the Cloud' - it's up to you to seek out ways to benefit from the sun and sand. See you in Miami!

A Cloud Computing Adoption Survey released on Feb. 4th by email solutions provider Mimecast indicates that not only are companies satisfied with cloud-powered services and applications but at least 70 percent are saying they want more.

The primary reason for adopting is cost savings according to more than half of the 565 IT professionals surveyed in the US and Canada. Running the business with more agility by reacting better to unexpected changes and the ability to scale or easily add on services when required are also proving to be huge benefits. Nearly 50 percent of the respondents supported that notion.

Microsoft's study, SMB IT and Hosted IT Index 2010, released on Feb. 3rd showed that a definite correlation exists between financial performance and the use of hosted/cloud computing services. In this global survey of about 3,200 SMBs, more than 40 percent of the respondents using hosted or cloud technology reported revenue increases of 30 percent or more. Conversely, decreases in yearly revenue were reported by 90 percent of respondents not using hosted technology.

"The fears of a global economic meltdown have receded and CEOs are more upbeat about their prospects," said Chris Clark, CEO and senior partner of PwC.

The survey, conducted in 52 countries during the last quarter of 2009, indicates that 40 percent of the chief executives worldwide plan to hire additional staff in 2010. Half of those in Canada and Asia Pacific plan to increase headcounts and in Brazil it jumps to 60 percent.

It's fantastic that the Web hosting community has reached out to offer help. Companies such as HostGator, SingleHop, Laughing Squid, HostDime, iWeb, Site5, SoftLayer, Blue Box Group, Webair, VPS.NET and others have partnered with the American Red Cross.

Please visit http://hostingforhaiti.com/ to learn more.

The partnership, announced on Jan. 13th, will of course include bundled services already offered by both companies but plans are under way to conduct research and develop other product lines as well. Hurd noted that up to 11,000 service representatives will share the responsibility "for testing, loading, and providing services for products sold under the partnership, which will also have its own dedicated sales force."

IBM followed suit on Jan. 14th with a blockbuster cloud deal of its own. About 150,000 employees from consumer electronics firm, Panasonic will adopt IBM’s LotusLive.com services for Web conferencing, file sharing, instant messaging and project management. Panasonic will be migrating employees from Microsoft Exchange or other collaboration software to LotusLive for email, calendaring and contact management.

IBM is quick to remind us that the global cloud computing market is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 28 percent from $47 billion in 2008 to $126 billion by 2012. That kind of market opportunity virtually ensures companies will stay in line to make great things happen.

So you hear this one a few times especially during the first couple of weeks into the New Year: I'm thinking of starting up a website, what should I do?

Some take a cue and bail out immediately, but I always respond with something like this: Have you bought a domain yet? Normally, this gets into a lengthier discussion but I've covered the territory before.

Revenues (for the year ended Sept. 30, 2009) increased by 74 percent to $27.1M from $15.6M in 2008, cash flows were up to $6.2M from $3.6M and operating income improved by $524,000. You'd think any chief executive would welcome that under a tree, in a stocking or wrapped in a bow. That it was the fifth consecutive year of "high growth" makes it that much more festive.

We congratulate the folks at iWeb on a great year and just as importantly express our warm wishes to our readers for a memorable Holiday Season.

But hope still flourishes regardless, as long as individuals and companies act together.

The New Zealand facility will be 56,000 square feet with a 16,000 square foot data center by the time it's operating late next year.

Of course, the latest green solutions will be applied and the latest cooling technologies used. December 10th also saw the formal launch of another green data center in Korea- IBM Business Park, which is part of the Kyobo Data Center facility. More than 20 clients have signed up for Web hosting, disaster recovery and similar outsourced services.

Impressively, the 90-centimeter raised access floor and other cooling features can reduce thermal energy by more than 10 percent and lower carbon emission by 26 percent. But that's a far cry from the Green Data Center (GDC) Big Blue is working together with Syracuse University on; that's going to use about 50 percent less energy than the typical data center, making it one of the greenest in the world.

In raising the floor, IBM is clearly also raising the bar.