Network Solutions

Network Solutions, LLC is an internet-centric company providing products and services targeted at the web. The company's product and service offerings include domain name registration, email hosting, website development, ecommerce products and solutions, web hosting, SSL certification, online marketing services, and website design services.

The company's corporate headquarters are located at Herndon, Virginia, USA. There are approximately 900 employees on its payroll.

History[edit | edit source]

According to the timeline of the company's history published on the company website, the company was founded by Emmit J. McHenry, an entrepreneur from Arkansas.

In 1991, Network Solutions was awarded the contract to operate the domain name registry on behalf of the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The company's mandate was to register domain names in the .com, .org, .mil, .gov, .edu and .net, and this service was free of cost to the then customers.

In 1993, the company was sole bidder for the contract for operating domain registry service for .com, .net and .org domains, from the National Science Foundation (NSF) the first company to do so,^{[footnote 1]}. In those days, the functions of registry and registrar were performed by one single agency: Network Solutions. The company would hold the position of the sole domain registrar in the world for these three registries for six years, until 1999. The company was also given the contract of maintaining the central database of assigned names called WHOIS.

The company was acquired in 1995 by the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Three years later, in 1997, Network Solutions was listed at the NASDAQ stock exchange and acquired the symbol of "NSOL". Its initial public offering (IPO) managed to raise USD 67 million.

The control of Network Solutions changed hands in 2000, when VeriSign acquired the majority share holding at a price of USD 20 billion ^[1]. The owner resold the company in 2003 to the Najafi Companies, while retaining the .com domain registry business to itself. Network Solution's business changed from being a registry to becoming a domain registrar. Under the new management, Network Solutions launched an inorganic growth strategy by first acquiring InQuent Technologies in Toronto (Canada) in 2004, followed by acquiring MonsterCommerce in 2005. The company's ownership changed hands once again in 2007 when General Atlantic, a private equity firm, bought into the company.

The company has been recognized for customer satisfaction excellence^[2] for a fourth consecutive year (2006 to 2009) by J.D. Power and Associates under their Certified Call Center Program.

Governance[edit | edit source]

The board of directors at Network Solutions comprises eight members, four of whom are representatives of General Atlantic. The board is presently headed by Robert F. Callahan, in his position as chairman of the board and special advisor with General Atlantic.

The executive team comprises seven members, with Tim Kelly as the CEO also serving as director on the board.

Domain Registrar Function[edit | edit source]

According to the statistics compiled by Name Intelligence, Network Solutions had registered a total of 6,678,361 domains by the end of 2007, making it the third largest in table rankings, with GoDaddy taking first position (21,683,746 domains) followed by eNom in the second (8,113,940). According to the company page, the company in 2010 is host to 7 million domain names, 1,000,000 emailboxes and 300,000 websites.

As domain registrar, Network Solutions offers the following services: