Hosting is one part of setting up your website online. Hosting is the service provided by certain companies, in which they rent out disk space and bandwidth of their large servers to customers, usually for a monthly fee.
There are many hosting companies pushing their services. As a business owner, it is up to you to select one that meets your demands. Certain factors like 99.9% uptime, speed of data transfer, backup capabilities, security protocols etc. are a priority for decision in choosing any hosting service.
There are two main types of hosting - Windows based and Linux based. It is one of the decisions you have to make when selecting a hosting solution. It will affect how your website and ultimately how well your business perform. One needs to note that websites designed for the Linux environment can easily be hosted later on a Windows host if needed. But the reverse is not always true. So, you can go for Linux hosting unless you are very sure that only Windows hosting will meet your needs.
Performance wise, both hosting platforms are neck-to-neck and it is difficult to rate one better than the other. The fact is the skill of the administrator plays a more important role than any inherent performance advantage any hosting platform has.
The next thing to consider is security. Here also both are almost the same, if proper security measures are followed. But Windows is more often targeted by viruses and worms by malicious users, whereas less of these viruses are made to attack the Linux system. This may be because Windows is the most popular system for home users.
Perhaps the biggest aspect to look for when choosing a hosting platform is its scalability and compatibility. PHP and MySQL are applications that can be used in both Linux and Windows systems. However if you plan on creating websites based on the powerful.NET framework and ASP (Active Server Page) applications then Windows is a must, since these applications run exclusively on Windows hosting. Also Visual Basic scripts only run in a Windows environment. All this makes Windows more scalable.
This is the major deal breaker when it comes to Linux..NET and ASP are highly effective in creating large dynamic websites with searchable database that is required for high end websites. For this reason alone, many companies choose Windows hosting.
Linux offer MySQL for its database. Windows uses MS Access for smaller database and MS SQL Server for large scale databases. If your site requires large searchable databases with dynamic functionalities, the Windows is the best solution for you. The high performance of Windows based databases cannot be matched by Linux.
If you are an amateur web designer you may be aware of MS FrontPage to create basic websites. Unfortunately, MS FrontPage extensions are only compatible with MS Windows hosting. In short one can safely say that if your company plans to use more Windows specific applications, you can achieve higher compatibility with Windows hosting plan.
There are many windows hosting providers in the market. The best Windows hosting service is probably provided by Indian companies. Their Windows hosting services are all inclusive with excellent computer engineering professionals who provide 24/7 English customer support at a tenth of what it costs in the west.

One of the best Windows hosting providers is SmartWindowsHost. They also provide Windows VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting in case you need more dedicated service.
So, be smart enough to think smart and choose smart.
Please feel free to contact us on: http://www.smartwindowhosting.in/