Key-Systems
Key-Systems, is a domain names distributor and management company. It was founded in 1998 by Alexander Siffrin, and received it's accreditation from ICANN as an official registrar in October, 2000. This German based company has subsidiaries in the U.S.A. and Mexico and provides services to its end customers and resellers through its three domain portals: RRPproxy.net, BrandShelter.com and domaindiscount24.com. [1]
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| Type: | GmbH (limited liability - Germany) |
| Industry: | Internet, Domain names |
| Founded: | 1998 |
| Headquarters: | In the Upper Plant 1 66386 St. Ingbert |
| Country: | Germany |
| Products: | DomainDiscount24, RRPproxy, BrandShelter |
| Employees: | 54 (2010) |
| Website: | http://key-systems.net/ |
| Key People | |
| Alexander Siffrin (CEO/ CTO) Thorsten Smeets (Dir. Registry Relations) | |
As of November 2010, Key-Systems has over 1,620,000 domains under its management.[2] The company currently holds the second place among the leading registrars for global TLDs in Europe;[3] and Key-Systems is ranked the 12th largest ICANN registrars worldwide.[4]
History
- In 1998, Alexander Siffrin founded Key-Systems GbR (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts), a civil law partnership company, in Friedrichsthal, Germany. Key-Systems GbR was turned into a limited liability company Key-Systems GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) in 2000. [5]
- In 2000, Key-Systems launched domaindiscount24.com (dd24), the domain portal for end-customers. On November 10th, 2000, ICANN announced that Key-Systems GmbH d/b/a domaindiscount24.com had qualified to be accredited as domain name registrar in the .com, .net, and .org domains. [6]
- In 2001, Key-Systems launched its reseller portal RRPproxy.net. Key-Systems joined DENIC, the cooperative for the administration of the German ccTLD, .de; in the same year. Key-Systems also participated in the first meetings addressing the implementation of a domain .EU for Europe.
- Key-Systems participated in VeriSign's IDN testbed in 2002. By then, Key-Systems started to provide more than 60 different domain name extensions.
- In 2004, the company was relocated from Bexbach to Zweibrücken. Key-Systems headquarters were later relocated from Zweibrücken to St. Ingbert in its own company building in 2010.
- In 2007, Key-Systems took over the former VeriSign Namestore System, migrating more than 200,000 domains to the RRPproxy platform.
- In May, 2009, Key-Systems founded its US subsidiary in Virginia, Washington Metro area and Bonnie Wittenburg was announced as the new Executive Vice President for Key-Systems USA, Inc. [8]. In November, 2009, Key-Systems opened another subsidiary in Monterrey, Mexico focusing the Latin American Market.[9].
- In July 2009, Key-Systems invested in DevKey Domain Management Solutions, buying 49% of its share. [10]
Products and Services
Key-Systems provides services to its end customers resellers through its three domain portals
- DomainDiscount24 (dd24): domain registration portal, including web- and mailspace offers available in five different languages, targeting at retail customers.
- RRPproxy: for domain-resellers of both gTLD and ccTLD domain names, its provides registration of domains through a WebInterface, Direct-Socket-Access, Email-Template or API.
- BrandShelter: helps to manage and monitor huge domain portfolios and includes supports in planning, executing and operating the TLD.
Awards
Deloitte Technology awarded Key-Systems the rank 23rd in “Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Award” for the year 2010. [12] Key-Systems was ranked 411 in the "2009 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA Ranking and CEO Survey".[13] It was also awarded the Rank 22 of the fastest growing technology companies in Germany by Deloitte.
Key-Systems was ranked as number 8 in “Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Award” in 2008.