“Demand for pre-built Web sites is surging as small businesses and professional Web site designers seek to create superior business Web sites with less effort,” says Paul D. Engels, Hostopia’s chief marketing officer. “Hosting providers can fill this demand, but only if they source a reliable supply of compelling templates with attractive licensing terms. Hostopia meets this need.”

The Web site templates licensed by Hostopia are based on industry standard protocols to be fully compatible with development tools such as Namo WebEditor 2006 Suite, Adobe Photoshop 6+, Macromedia Flash MX+, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004, FrontPage 2003+, or any other HTML editor. File formats supported include PSD, HTML, SWF and FLA as well as non-flash versions.

Hostopia and Hostgator say that over 2,500 templates are included under a fully-paid license with an option to add additional site templates plus OS commerce designs. Meanwhile, Hostgator CEO Brent Oxley says that the company’s marketing plans for the templates are currently being developed and clients can expect to see them within 90 days.

The specific licensed patents are US Patent numbers 5,680,152 and 6,789,103 and broadly cover methods for Web site building and Web hosting control panels.

According to the license agreement, Hostopia will pay Web.com a royalty, based on a trailing run rate, equal to 10 percent of its gross US retail revenues for five years. The royalty will be paid in full at signing.

Web.com, formerly Interland, began efforts to enforce a number of hosting related patents when it sued Go Daddy in June.

Web.com CEO Jeffrey Stibel told theWHIR in January that the company was examining its options for “leveraging” its patent position. Those options evidently include both legal action and licensing deals.

Hostopia and Web.com have also entered a cross-license agreement where Web.com was granted rights to thousands of html and Flash Web site templates and a license to additional intellectual property in the future at no extra cost. The companies have also agreed to a mutual covenant not to sue for patent infringement.

“We approached Web.com to receive a license in order to enhance our award winning private label web hosting platform and maintain our retail Web hosting business,” said Colin Campbell, CEO of Hostopia in a press release. “Web.com helped build this industry and their patented technology has led to numerous hosting innovations. We are pleased that the two companies were able to create a mutually beneficial relationship.”

This marks Hostopia’s first appearance among Netcraft’s reliability rankings. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Web host specializes in the wholesale hosting market, offering private-label Web and application hosting plans for resellers.

This month’s results illustrate the reliability of the shared hosting sector, which traditionally offers the most affordable hosting plans. Three of the top 10 Web hosting providers – iPowerWeb, Interland and MyHosting — all offer hosting plans for less than $10 a month, while another five have basic plans priced below $20.

Netcraft measures and publishes the response times of fifty leading hosting providers’ sites. The performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from six separate points around the Internet, and averages are calculated over the immediately preceding 24 hour period.