Verisign Gets Out of the Registrar Biz, Keeps .com Registry

Perianwyr Stormcrow writes "Verisign shot off a message today saying that they're selling off Network Solutions to Pivotal Private Equity (a firm specializing in picking up and turning around 'under-performing' businesses.) Perhaps Sitefinder was an attempt at maximizing shareholder value for the sale."

Comments

Key point

[Lizard_King]

For those of you who don't RTFA, here is the key point from the release:
When VeriSign acquired Network Solutions in 2000, it obtained two distinct businesses:

- The customer-facing Registrar business is the world's leading provider of domain name registrations, and an industry leader in value added services such as business email, websites, hosting and other web presence services. The Registrar, which re-assumed the Network Solutions name in January of this year, constitutes the current Network Solutions business that is being sold.

- The Registry business that is the backbone of the global .com and .net domain name infrastructure currently handles over 10 billion interactions per day, remains with VeriSign as a critical component of its business. This Registry business was recently renamed VeriSign Naming and Directory Services and is a core piece of VeriSign's Internet Services Group.


Synopsis: selling customer facing biz, keeping registry infrastructure.

Note, it's not all of Network Solutions...

[dedave]

They're only selling half of the business.

Quote from the press release:

When VeriSign acquired Network Solutions in 2000, it obtained two distinct businesses:

The customer-facing Registrar business is the world's leading provider of domain name registrations, and an industry leader in value added services such as business email, websites, hosting and other web presence services. The Registrar, which re-assumed the Network Solutions name in January of this year, constitutes the current Network Solutions business that is being sold.

The Registry business that is the backbone of the global .com and .net domain name infrastructure currently handles over 10 billion interactions per day, remains with VeriSign as a critical component of its business. This Registry business was recently renamed VeriSign Naming and Directory Services and is a core piece of VeriSign's Internet Services Group.

If I was a gambling man, I'd bet that this is an end-run around ICANNs contract with them to run .com/.net in an impartial manner. Go SiteFinder!

Re:Gets out but stays in?

[markhb]

There are two parts: the registrar business of signing up domain names (the same as what places like register.com do), which is what is being sold, and the registry business, which is the maintenance of the central .com database and the root server(s). They're keeping the registry side, so the submitter's comment about Siteminder is in error... they still have that side of the operation.

Re:Gets out but stays in?

[turg]

There are two separate roles that Versign has/had here.

1. They are the registry operator who run the core database of domain names for various TLDs, including .com and .net. They do this on behalf of ICANN and the US Dept of Commerce (in the case of .com and .net). This also means they run the root DNS for those TLDs. This is the position that allowed them to create their SiteFinder "service." The registry operator gets information about the domains from registrars.
2. In addition, they are one of the many competing domain name registrars.

Though they acquired both of these functions by buying Network Solutions, they are only selling the registrar business. While this removes a conflict of interest for them, it doesn't do anything for the recent controversy