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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."
Good riddance !
For those of you who don't RTFA, here is the key point from the release:
.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.
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
Synopsis: selling customer facing biz, keeping registry infrastructure.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Someone please tell me again why capitalism is good.
Capitalism isn't good. It's just the least bad of the available options tried thus far.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
They're only selling half of the business.
.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.
.com/.net in an impartial manner. Go SiteFinder!
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
If I was a gambling man, I'd bet that this is an end-run around ICANNs contract with them to run
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.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Did you ever deal with NSI or Verisign customer service? I did on several occassions and couldn't help getting the "I'd like to help you, but don't piss me off or I'll turn off the Internet" kind of feeling from the reps.
The business Verisign kept is, of course, absolutely critical, and people operating under the brand and direction of Verisign have irritated me beyond reason in the past. So, reasonably or otherwise, I don't like the thought of that company continuing to run the backbone. Still, it works most of the time, and now I won't ever have to call them to find out why my DNS designations haven't been updated yet.
So I *do* like the idea of separating the retail front from the back room folks. It's always smacked of government sponsored monopoly to have the two together -- maybe the new NSI will actually be a pleasure to work with (and I'll win the lottery and the Cubs will take the series).
who's moderating the meta-moderators?
Whats so bad about it? Ok off the top of my head.....
1) I cannot turn it off.
2) Its in English (not the native tounge of the reader).
3) It breaks the autocomplete url functionality because every time I typo a url it is added to my history, where as they are not added when a domain is not found. Making the right sites harder and harder to find.
4) Search engine is paid for adverts.
5) http is not the only protocol on the planet, its just one port of many.
6) Why does verisign have the right to the wildcard, surely this is a valuable commonity and should have been sold off to the highest bidder?
James
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
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Will Icann actually get off their ass and sanction Network solutions for allowing this type of registration?
Fight Spammers!
I fail to see why anyone would register through Verisign when you have places like GoDaddy that will give you a domain for less than $20 for two years.
Well, I used one of those discount registrars for a group of addresses, and I deeply regretted the decision. It turns out the outfit split their service delivery between two separate companies, with two separate web front-ends, separate user IDs, and passwords etc. (which weren't even provided to me when I signed up). Worse, the group doing technical support was overseas, so the responsiveness wasn't great. Then, "whois" never worked on the domain name, just kept timing out. When I complained to technical support, they just kind of mumbled something like "that shouldn't be happening, hmmmm...."
I ultimately dropped them, and moved all of my business to Network Solutions. Sure, it cost me a little more, but I find their web-based management tool to be very usable, and have no complaints about their responsiveness.
Ever heard of "From Rags to Riches" stories? Not all of them are made up or trumped up on the evening news. Societies/economies based on human's own motivation and drive are not bad.
Your key phrase was "almost impossible." Many a fortune has been made on beating those odds. Don't be such a cynic. Not everyone gives up so easily.
It's only a "billion dollar business" because it's a monopoly and because it's been heavily hyped.
You're forgetting the massive tax writeoff that's probably involved when you take an asset that you purchased for $21B and sell it off for $100M.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?