From CNN Online. July 15, 1998
Internet Name Registrar Poised to Meet Competition
Reuters
16-JUL-98
WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters)- Network Solutions Inc.'s exclusive government contract to run the Internet name registry may expire Sept. 30 but the company said Wednesday it was aggressively leveraging its position ahead of competition.
Network Solution's chief executive, Gabe Battista, said the company was accelerating corporate name registrations and offering those customers enhanced e-mail and electronic commerce services.
Battista told the Technology Investor Conference in Washington the company had also formed strong relationships with Internet service providers and Web hosting companies.
"The relationships we're establishing now put us in the position to keep that channel going when competition comes," he said.
Battista said he did not see competition coming from existing Internet service providers but rather from companies with good back-office administrative operations and large customer databases for chasing new business.
The U.S. government said in June it would phase out its management of the Internet's most basic functions and allow the private sector to determine how to proceed.
Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions has served as the exclusive registrar of the Internet's generic top-level domains of ".com," ".org" and ".net." Top-level domains suffixes are at the end of every Internet address. Others include ".gov" as in "www.whitehouse.gov" or country specific ones like ".au" for Australia.
Meetings are being held around the world to work out how a non-profit corporation would set the ground rules for competitive operation of the World Wide Web.
Battista shrugged his shoulders when asked if Network Solutions would lose its exclusive registration function Sept. 30 as planned.
"We have said we are for competition," he replied, but noted the difficulties in quickly finding agreement among the interests represented by 100 million Internet users.
"The U.S. government has made it clear...that it will not abandon its stewardship of the Internet before arrangements are complete," Battista told Reuters after his presentation. Network Solutions has grown with the increasing commercial interest in the Internet.
For the first quarter ended March 31, the company's net income rose to $2.05 million, or 13 cents a share on a diluted basis, from $516,000 or 4 cents, for the same period of 1997.
In May, Network Solutions registrations passed the two million mark, after the company reported a record 340,000 net new Internet domain names in the first quarter of 1998, up 73 percent from the first-quarter 1997 total of 197,000 names. ((Tim Dobbyn, Washington newsroom, Phone: 202-898-8362 Fax: 202 898-8383, E-Mail washington.equities.newsroomreuters.com)) |
