> I have not asked that the bar be raised. I do believe the bar was too low
> from the start, but this was a marketing deploy by OpenSRS from the start
> and has been very successful in attracting new RSP's. A large percentage of
> these new clients were the clients of their RSPs, but I believe this too was
> designed from the start.
>
> What prompted my posting was that of the statement of Mr. Rader knocking the
> other Registrars for competing with their resellers. I saw this a case of
> the pot calling the kettle black, as OpenSRS has competed with their RSPs
> from the start for the RSP's better clients. They have done so with their
> advertising, their web site design and these discussions groups.
>
> Now they are going to compete with their RSP's for the remaining clients by
> offering the ancillary services that the RSPs currently offer.
>
> No, they do not want all the RSP's clients. Just those that register 10 or
> more domains a year. They are willing to leave the one'se and two's to
> their RSPs. But that might change when they start offering the ancillary
> services. Then it might be worth while to go after those that register one
> domain a year.
>
> Oops, I forgot, they already do that now. They call it DomainDirect.
Tucows, an Internet company that has been around longer than Netscape,
has a long and well documented track record of working with others towards
the success of all. This is a strongly held belief that will not go
silently or willingly into the night, so to speak.
A driving assumption behind OpenSRS is that there are good customers and
bad customers. Good customers register a small amount of names and use
them in conjunction with the services that our channel provides. Services
like DNS forwarding, Webhosting, dedicated connectivity etc. None of these
services unto themselves really represent a sustainable business model,
but combined, they quickly translate into real revenue for smart companies
that can effectively market and support them.
All of our efforts are consistent with these views. Our conception of APS
is solely limited to highly complex, poorly available products and
services that, quite frankly, are a pain in the ass for the average bear
to effectively manage and sell. Domain names are a great example of this.
Prior to our launch earlier this year, ISPs and Webhosters had a choice to
deal with Register.com or NSI @ $35 per year and risk losing their
customers to them en masse.
Although we have had a number of internal conversations about APS that do
not fall within the bounds of this convention, we consistently come back
to the conclusion that we must continue to offer products and services to
our channel that aren't always easily available off the shelf. To phrase
it another way, we are simply not interested in providing services that
the average company can execute against. For example, our ccTLD plans
include dozens upon dozens of new TLDs - even though there are only about
30-40 or so that are readily and easily available. Why? Simply put, the
one's that aren't easily available are the ones where the real revenue
opportunity lie. APS follow these exact same rules.
I can't comment directly on the specific offerings that have been
mentioned here, but as a standard rule, simply apply our baseline filter
of "highly complex, poorly available" against some of the offerings that
you have all been discussing and what our product roadmap doesn't contain
quickly becomes apparent - and probably a lot more comfortable for you.
Hope this helps. Even though this list can appear somewhat adversarial at
times, I actually appreciate hearing the uncensored versions of what is
really important to all of you. Sincere thanks for the candid input...
-rwr
Ross Wm. Rader
Director Product Management,
Channel Platform Group
Tucows Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
t. 416.535.0123 x335
f. 416.531.5584
"Embrace the cow, love the cow.
And remember, Winsock means love."
