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By: Ben Lucier on October 29th, 2010
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: ICANN accreditation, registrar service
Comments: 1

You may have heard the news last week that Automattic, the company behind WordPress (and other cool services) has become its own accredited registrar and it got me thinking that it’s been a while since we’ve talked about our own Registrar Service.

We have all different kinds of wholesale, or white label, clients selling domain names through OpenSRS. From the independent web designers, to larger agencies, ISPs and hosting companies and yes, even other registrars.

The part I love the most when I tell our story, is that unlike some other businesses, we don’t have that heart wrenching chapter where the customer outgrows the service provider and waves a sad farewell as they strike out on their own. In fact, far from saying goodbye, we tend to hold our resellers’ hands and walk them through the accreditation process. (We’ve been through it over thirty times ourselves.)

Our Registrar Service is all about bridging the gap as an OpenSRS reseller decides it makes business sense to become its own accredited registrar. It’s a complete replica of the same platform we use to manage more than ten million domain names for more than 10,000 resellers. Plus, you can use a familiar API to register TLDs for which you’re accredited, while still registering domains for other TLDs through us.

See, I think most service providers considering a choice between reselling and accreditation would think about it this way:

• If I resell, I don’t have to worry about the technology, but I sacrifice some ownership and (inevitably) some branding.
• If I become an accredited registrar, I get that extra bit of control (and accountability) but I assume a significant technical burden.

There is indeed a significant upfront investment and effort involved in becoming an accredited registrar. But once you decide that investment is worth it, our OpenSRS Registrar Service is sort of like having your cake and eating it too. You get that branding all the way through (to WHOIS records and elsewhere), you get the extra bit of control and accountability, but you still get to offload the really messy technical stuff.

We have tons of information on our website about our Registrar Service, including a case study that explains how we helped Holland’s largest telco KPN, transition from an in-house system, to our Registrar Service for .NL domains.

The most important thing I’d like you to consider is this:

If you’re already selling domain names and interested in becoming an accredited registrar, we can help you through the accreditation and technical certification process in addition to providing one of the best domain name registration and management solutions in the industry. And if you are already a registrar and you’re spending way too much managing systems and processes outside your core competence, we can help you too.

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By: James Koole on October 25th, 2010
Posted in: OpenSRS Services, Reseller Resources
Tags: .CA, CIRA, Domain Service
Comments: 3

The transition to the new EPP-based registry platform for .CA domains went very smoothly. The last of a couple of minor bugs have now been fixed and everything is back to the new normal for .CA domains.

We thank all of our Resellers for their help and patience throughout the transition process. The result is a better experience for .CA domain registrants and a .CA domain extension that’s much easier to sell and support.

Locking your .CA Domains

We do have one important follow-up note for Resellers with .CA domains in their accounts. With the transition to the new platform, domain locking is now available for .CA domains. The default state for domains after the transition is “unlocked” so you will want to lock the .CA domains in your account to provide an added level of security to the registrants of those domains.

Using the “Bulk Domain Change Management” section of the Reseller Web Interface makes this a pretty simple task:

• Click on “Bulk Domain Change Management”. Then click “Bulk Domain Search” which will allow you to get a list of all the .CA domains in your account.
• Search for “*” and select .ca domains in the “Search for Domains by TLD” section. Add your email address and click “Results to File” to run the search.
• In a few minutes you’ll receive a list of the .ca domains in your account. Copy the list out of the email and then paste it into a text editor and save it as a .txt file with one domain per line.
• Return back to the “Bulk Domain Change Management” screen and click on “Domain Lock” to start the locking process.
• On the next screen, select “Upload a list of items” and then “Choose File” to upload the text file you just created. Add you email address to get a confirmation email when the bulk change is completed. Then select “Lock Domain(s)” and click “Submit” to lock the domains.

Here’s a quick screencast tutorial demonstrating how to do it:

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By: James Koole on October 21st, 2010
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: Email Service
Comments: 0

We’re just putting the finishing touches on a Fall Release for OpenSRS Email Service. Your users should see these new features and enhancements starting on October 28th, 2010.

Here’s what’s happening:

• Allowable email message size increased to 35MB: incoming and outgoing messages can now be larger. This reflects the increasing size of things like photos and other attachments users are sending through email.
• Maximum length of a folder name increased: users can now create folder names up to 40 characters in length (up from 15) for both IMAP and Webmail.
• Three new languages: Webmail is now available in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish including the user help system built into the webmail interface. This is in addition to the languages already supported: English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese.
• Per-user branding: you can brand webmail down to the user account level instead of just the domain level to add or remove features like the calendar and RSS reader for a subset of accounts on a domain. You’ll see a new drop-down menu to select the brand on both the “New Mailbox” and “Edit Mailbox” screens in the Mail Adminstration Center (MAC) where you can set the brand on the account.

Expect to see the new release in the Production Test Environment (PTE) starting on October 21st, 2010. A week later, on October 28th, 2010, we’ll promote the release to both Cluster A and B.

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By: Dave Woroch on October 21st, 2010
Posted in: Announcements
Tags:
Comments: 8

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Thorsten Einig to the OpenSRS team as our new Managing Director, Europe. Thorsten brings a wealth of experience in the hosting and internet industry, and we’re excited to have him leading the charge as we continue to support and grow our OpenSRS business in Europe!

Thorsten has more than ten years of experience in the hosting and domain industry. He spent eight years with 1&1 Internet in both Germany – being in charge of 1&1’s domain business – and the USA, and last held the position of Business Development Manager for 1&1 in North America. Most recently, Thorsten worked as a Senior Product Manager at Leaseweb B.V. in the Netherlands.

Thorsten’s first-hand knowledge of the hosting industry and his depth of experience, specifically in terms of understanding the unique needs of the European market, will be of great benefit to our existing customers in Europe. We’ve tasked Thorsten with the responsibility for growing our business in Europe while still maintaining and reinforcing the existing strong relationships that we have with our European resellers.

Thorsten will be based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, while his team will remain in the UK to bridge Canada and Europe.

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By: Dave Woroch on October 20th, 2010
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: reseller-friendly, WHOIS Privacy
Comments: 1

Did you know that an estimated 20% of .COM domain owners have WHOIS Privacy enabled on their domain’s public WHOIS record?

For GoDaddy, that means as many as 8 million domain owners pay an extra $8.99 per year to have their personal address and contact information protected from the public Internet. That’s tens of millions of additional dollars into the pocket of the world’s largest domain registrar!

Many wholesale registrars enjoy high margins on WHOIS Privacy as well. For example, when a reseller purchases the Privacy Protect option from eNom, that adds an extra $6 per year to the cost of the domain registration.

At OpenSRS, we offer WHOIS privacy for free.

It’s just another reseller-friendly choice we’ve made (foregoing substantial additional profit) to set ourselves apart from our competition and to help you profitably satisfy your customers and set yourselves apart from your competition.

So, WHOIS Privacy has real value to your customers. You get it for free. This affords you two wonderful options:

• Charge for it (like GoDaddy) and enjoy the 100% profit.
• Make sure your customers know and appreciate that you are not charging for it.

(Look out for some great white label materials soon to help explain the benefits of WHOIS Privacy to your customers!)

Giving you the opportunity. Giving you the choice. For us, that’s what being reseller-friendly is all about.