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Register.com

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Revision as of 18:35, 19 January 2011 by Andrew (talk | contribs) (→DDoS Attacks)
Type: Private
Industry: Registrar
Founded: USA (1999)
Founder(s): Richard Foreman
Peter Foreman
Headquarters: 575 8th Ave., 11th FL
New York,
NY 10018-3011,
USA
Employees: 489 (2008)
Revenue: 51.70 M (2008)
Website: http://www.register.com
Key People
David L. Brown, President

Gary S. Michel , EVP and CFO
Myles Trachtenberg, SVP and CIO

Register.com is a web hosting and internet domain register company based in NY, USA.

The company mainly sells registrations for general extensions like: .com, .net, .org, .co, .biz and also country based extensions, such as: .uk, .us, .jp, .ca . The company serves an extensive range of customers from individuals and small businesses to large corporations, and it has more than 2.5 million domain names under its management. [1]

The company also offers email packaging, website hosting, website developing, security solutions, and internet marketing services. The headquarters of Register.com is located in New York city and has branches in Baltimore and Halifix, United States, London, England, and Nova Scotia, Canada.

History[edit | edit source]

  • The company was founded in 1994 under the name Forman Interactive by brothers Richard Forman and Peter Formanas an ISP. The company changed its name to Register.com in 1999.
  • In 2000, Register.com issued an IPO and began trading on the NASDAQ under ticker symbol RCOM pricing its share at $24.[3]
  • In 2004, the company was listed by VeriSign as one of the top domain name registrars in the world.
  • In 2006, Register.com was sold to the San Francisco-based private equity firm Vector Capital Corporation for approximately $200 million.[5] David Moore was appointed as interim CEO of the company by Vector Capital after the acquisition. [6]. During his time, the company focused on cost reduction through better business practices.
  • On November 1st, 2006, Register.com announced the appointment of Larry Kutscher as CEO of the company.[7]. Under Kutscher, Register.com continued the strategy of supporting small business owners and entrepreneurs.[8]
  • Kutscher served as CEO of Register.com until July 2010[9]. In July 2010, Register.com was acquired by Web.com for about $135 million.[10]

Products and Services[edit | edit source]

According to their official website, the products and services Register.com provides are:

  • Domain Registration - registrations for general extension, such as: .com, .net, .org , .co , .biz and also country based extensions, such as: .uk, .us, .jp, .ca
  • Email Packages - Different packages for single users, multi-users, professionals and business entities.
  • Website Development - Website design and development for standard websites, e-commerce websites, and custom websites.
  • Security Solutions - Different kinds of security solutions, such as standard SSL, premium SSL, wildcard SSL, etc.
  • Promotional Services - Such as online marketing, email promotion, visitor clicks, etc.

Awards[edit | edit source]

Register.com received frequent awards and recognitions for their role as a pioneer business entity in internet and web-based business. They have received "An Outstanding Customer Service Experience" by J.D. Power and Associates for 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, "Shared Hosting Provider" by The Web Host Directory for 2008 and 2009, "Editors Choice Award" by HostingFindMyHost.com for 2009[11], the "#1 Shared Hosting Provider" award by The Web Host Directory for 2005 and 2006, the "Users Choice Award" by Name Intelligence in 2005, and "Stevie Award Finalist" with the American Business Awards for 2005. They were rated number 1 in Top 10 Best Rated Website Hosting Reviews by Website-Hosting-Reviews.net. [12]

ICANN Registrar Accreditation[edit | edit source]

In March 1999, ICANN Board posted the Statement of Registrar Accreditation Policy to implement a program for registrar accreditation for the .com, .net, and .org TLDs. From March 11 to April 8, 1999, ICANN accepted applications from entities seeking accreditation to participate as one of the five domain name registrars in the SRS Testbed Program.[13]

On April 21, 1999, ICANN announced Register.com was one of the first five testbed registrars for the competitive Shared Registry System. On June 7th, the company began operations under this name as a paid registrar in the .com, .net, and .org domains; along with AOL, CORE, France Telecom/Oléane and MelbourneIT. Register.com was the first registrar to come online. [14]

Vector's acquisition of Register.com[edit | edit source]

Register.com launched a very successful IPO in 2000, and was one of the pioneer companies in the internet business for 4 to 5 years. However, during 2005, as the demand for domain names slowed, Register.com’s revenue and market value fell significantly and the company began to face different challenges. [15]The company developed a strategy to focus on small businesses and providing online services to serve that segment of the market, but still continued to underperform in terms of revenue and in the stock market.[16]

On August 9th, 2005, Register.com announced a merger agreement with Vector Capital Corporation, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. [17]Public share holders of Register.com received cash consideration of $7.81 per share in the merger. Following the merger, Register.com was once again privately held and was no longer listed on the Nasdaq National Market.[18]

DDoS Attacks[edit | edit source]

On January 6th, 2001, Register.com had a severe Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that lasted for an entire week. It was the first major attack using DNS servers as reflectors.[19]

On April 1st, 2009, Register.com suffered another major DDoS attack, disrupting thousands of web sites. [20]The FBI and The Department of Homeland Security were engaged to help Register.com solve the issue.[21] Services experienced different kinds of problems for almost three days and the system was restored through counter-measures and minimized the disruption.[22] Their CEO, Larry Kutscher explains, "For the past three days Register.com has been experiencing intermittent service disruptions as a result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack – an intentionally malicious flooding of our systems from various points across the internet. We know the disruption of business this has caused our customers is unacceptable, and we are working round the clock to combat it."

Web.com's acquisition of Register.com[edit | edit source]

On June 17, 2010, Vector Capital announced an agreement under which Web.com acquired Register.com for about $135 million. [23]

Larry Kutscher, CEO of Register.com, said, "Since 2005, Vector has been a dedicated, hands-on partner working with our team to grow our business, maximize our operating efficiency and helping us become a preferred provider to small business customers. This announcement is the next step in the process of positive growth that we have achieved with Vector. Register.com's acquisition by Web.com will create an industry leader with the scale and breadth to further support small business customers in maximizing their presence on the web." [24]

In his statement, Web.com's President and CEO David Brown said, "We are very excited to announce our agreement to acquire Register.com, which will bring highly complementary products, sales channels and operating capabilities to Web.com.” [25]

References[edit | edit source]


External links[edit | edit source]

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