Redesigned WatchMouse site and new product plans (2009-12-24)
We’re pleased to announce the redesign and launch of www.watchmouse.com. The new site is faster, more responsive and designed to be much more intuitive. Don't take our word for it though, try it yourself and let us know what you think!
The changes:
- Clean, task-oriented design
- Faster page loads
- Improved main console for a better overview of your monitors and better access to the monitoring details
- New "dashboards" featuring related, grouped information and tasks
- A new dashboard selector on every page after you log in, just below the search field
We’ve also introduced chat support. You can now chat directly on the site whenever the support team is online (normally 8 AM to 8 PM Central European Time or GMT+1).
Stay tuned for even more usability improvements and additional features coming up in Q1 of next year!
New Product Plans
You asked and we listened! We’ve received many requests for expanded plans, and also for a slimmed down plan for personal use. Additionally, the functional test (scripts) we introduced last year have become very popular, so we decided to add these tests in all professional packages.
The changes:
- We added functional tests to the Webmaster and Corporate plans, plus a one-minute monitor in the Corporate plan - all at the same price
- Two new professional plans have been added: the Enterprise Plan with 100 monitors (including 20 functional tests) and the Multi-Site Plan
- The Gold Plan that included 10-minute monitors only, has been discontinued, however current customers can still continue to use this package
- All Professional Plans now include complementary vulnerability scans to verify that your site and server is safe
- Lastly, we added the Personal Plan, a cost-effective plan for small sites, and we beefed up the free, Lite Plan so it now checks at 20-minute intervals
Full details can be found at: http://www.watchmouse.com/compare_plans.php
Take a look at the new WatchMouse website and give us your feedback. Bear in mind we’re still adding content and polishing the edges, but we'd be delighted to hear your thoughts and comments!
Happy holidays!
Stan P. van de Burgt
CEO
WatchMouse
P.S. You may find an occasional English word in the non-English sites. Please note that these will be replaced within the next few days.
Linux-based website beats Windows-based sites (2007-06-24)
WatchMouse research shows Linux/Apache has less downtime and yields faster websites than Microsoft/IIS
London, June 20, 2007 – Linux websites have better uptime and load faster than Windows-based websites. Research by WatchMouse, a website monitoring company, also shows that web server platform Apache outperforms the Microsoft IIS platform. Therefore, having a Linux website and an Apache webserver platform offers the best choice for professional web pages.
WatchMouse researched the performance of over 1500 websites across different economic sectors in Europe. Most websites in this study are based on either Linux or Windows. Linux offers the best uptime. When looking at web server platforms the overall opinion favours Microsoft IIS and Apache although the latter outperforms the former in this area as well. The research finds that apart from operating system and web server platform, uptime also depends on the country where the server is based.
On average, Windows and Linux are running more than three quarters of all websites. However, there are differences between countries. Poland and Germany favour Linux combined with Apache for their websites while the professional sites in the UK and Sweden rely heavily on Windows/ Microsoft IIS. When looking at the relative performance of the different web server platforms, Linux clearly beats Windows.
One in four of the monitored professional websites have an uptime of 99.9% which suffices for customer satisfaction. Two thirds of the websites have an availability of less than 99.9% which accounts for at least 8 hours downtime per year. According to WatchMouse this is not acceptable.
“Even though the companies in our study seem to prefer Windows over Linux, our research shows they would be better off using Linux/Apache based websites. Research has shown that most web users are very impatient and will wait no longer than four seconds for a webpage to load”, says Mark Pors, Chief Technology Officer at WatchMouse. “Companies need to realise that website uptime is crucial for a healthy customer satisfaction and a solid client base. Organisations need to become more aware of the impact the choice of web server platform can have on their overall availability and performance.”
A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing all the sites monitored, can be found on
http://www.watchmouse.com/SPI/
