At 9/11/01 9:33 PM, David Iyoha wrote:
>And finally some Registrars now *retail* domains at $10-$15 range. So if
>OpenSRS provides the extra services that would be helpful to new (and some
>existing) RSP's to give them a competitive advantage (or at least make them
>even with some other resellers)
You're assuming that resellers of those services are making money. I
submit that in general, resellers of Internet services who do not add
much value (people who are more affiliates than resellers) are not making
money.
For example, I doubt many OpenSRS resellers are making money selling only
domain names or certificates "as-is". They make money by adding e-mail
services, installing certificates, or creating bundles of such services
-- by differentiating them.
If OpenSRS started offering, say, e-mail forwarding, the retail price of
that service would quickly sink to commodity levels, and small resellers
would make very little extra money at it. If you think that such services
are going to let small resellers increase the price and volume of domains
to the point that it's possible to make a living from such sales only,
without adding any value that OpenSRS does not create, you have a nasty
shock in store -- you'd be competing with other resellers (although you'd
have no clear advantage over them), and with registrars like eNom who
already offer identical services at retail and have a higher volume.
Those with huge volume might make a profit at it, but they can already
set up such services. Those with more sophisticated or targeted boutique
services would probably still make money, but that's not going to help
you, either. Worse, they'd see OpenSRS as a competitor (since OpenSRS's
e-mail forwarding service would compete with their value-added,
profit-making service), which would make some resellers leave -- that
hurts OpenSRS, which is bad for all resellers.
In short, although it might be disappointing, you have to realize that
people who want to resell services without making the investment to add
some kind of value aren't going to make much money for themselves or for
OpenSRS. In addition, if OpenSRS were doing all the work and resellers
were adding no value, OpenSRS would really be running an affiliate
program, not a wholesale company. I hope OpenSRS still realizes that
being a wholesale company is where *their* differentiation comes in.
--
Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
