A much higher percentage of Web Service Providers now provide Domain Name
Service (DNS) registration than just six months ago: 73.8% for the fifth
survey, and 53.8% for the fourth.
European Providers are even more likely to provide DNS registration
than their US counterparts (81.4% Europe, 76.5% US).
In order to better understand the pricing of services by Web Service Providers, this question allowed respondents to choose from more than one option.
The factor which respondents reported most affects the pricing is the
complexity of the project (85.0%), followed closely by other factors (83.9%)
and the duration of maintenance (71.1%).
In general, providers seem to be using more factors to determine pricing
than previously as almost all of these percentages are up from the fourth
survey. The one factor that decreased in importance was the size of the
project, which was the primary factor that determined pricing in the fourth
survey.
NOTE: The percentage for the number of providers in Europe with no customers is incorrect--
it should be 0.0%. Likewise, the number in the table should be 0. This will be fixed as soon as possible.
The average number of customers per Web Service Provider continues to slowly grow. 67.5% reported
having more than 11 customers, compared to 59.2% in the fourth survey.
US providers are still more likely to have a larger customer base than European providers.
There are more mid-sized providers reported in the fifth survey than in the fourth: 25.8% have 11 to 50
employees compared to 20.9% in the fifth. The number of small-sized firms is the same as the in the
fourth survey (60.5%).
US respondents tend to have a smaller number of employees compared to European respondents.
NOTE: The European percentages are wrong for this question. This
will be corrected as soon as possible.
The most popular pricing scheme for page design and creation continues
to be custom pricing (31.4%). For providers who use a standardized pricing
model the most popular is hourly (32.7%).
NOTE: The European percentages are wrong for this question. This
will be corrected as soon as possible.
As with pricing for page creation, the
most popular model is custom pricing (36.3%). For those with a
regular pricing scheme, most charge on an hourly basis (38.1%).
This question attempts to gain an idea of what types of services Web Service Providers (WSPs) are offering.
The percentage of providers who provide the following services are up notably from the fourth
survey: consulting (69.9% fourth, 79.6% fifth), disk space (58.9% fourth, 65.7% fifth), marketing (55.3%
fourth, 65.7% fifth), page design (78.1% fourth, 86.3% fifth), CGI scripting (57.4% fourth, 72.9% fifth),
and shell accounts (48.2% fourth, 67.0% fifth). The only category that dropped was traffic
analysis (51.5% fourth, 47.8% fifth).
In general, European providers offer more services than do US providers.
This question has changed since the fourth survey to include longer
time spans.
Web providers vary greatly in the number of years they have been
in business. Almost a quarter (24.2%) reported being in business for
over four years, while another quarter (24.5%) have been in business
for one to two years. New businesses continue to join the provider
industry as well, with 15.5% having been in business for less than six
months.
Providers in Europe tend to be both older and newer than those
in the US.
