Archive for: February, 2011

Introducing VeriSign Partner Grab and Go – Easy SSL Marketing

We’re really pleased to be the first wholesale registrar to offer the VeriSign Partner Progam’s Grab and Go SSL marketing content to our reseller base. Grab and Go is a great new service that makes it easy for you to build and maintain your SSL and trust marketing webpages.

There’s a variety of content modules to choose from – including VeriSign, GeoTrust and thawte product brands. Based on iframes, it’s easy to use: look at the modules you want, and cut and paste the code to your desired template page. The iframe content is dynamically served (or populated), so it’s always kept up-to-date on your site without any action required on your part. It’s a great way to make sure that you always have the “latest and greatest” marketing materials on your site to sell more SSL.

Get Started Today!

Get started with VeriSign Partner Grab and Go, provided by OpenSRS, by visiting the Grab and Go website. You’ll learn more about how the content modules work, and how to get them installed in your own site so you can either maximize your existing SSL and trust sales, or get started with selling SSL.

See it in Person at Parallels Summit 2011

And if you are at the Parallels Summit in Orlando, FL this week, be sure to drop by the OpenSRS booth in the Expo Hall (Booth 102). Both OpenSRS and VeriSign Partner Program people will be there at the show. We can demonstrate how Grab and Go works, and talk to you about the opportunities available for selling SSL and trust products to your customers.

Meet Our Reseller: Hostnet

Hostnet offers hosting and domain services in the Netherlands

Like many hosting companies, Hostnet started small. But thanks to a continued focus on the needs of its customers and a long-standing commitment to innovative technology and superior customer support, Hostnet has grown to become one of the leading providers of hosting and domain services in the Netherlands.

The company was started in 1998 by a pair of students providing web-design services. Soon, they realized that they needed a more recurring revenue model upon which they could grow their business.

Providing hosting and domain (domeinnaam in dutch) registrations was the natural extension that served the needs both of existing customers and allowed them to expand their customer base.

“Hostnet started out as a small ISP, offering web-design and SEO services to go with them,” says Merijn de Brabander, Business Manager, Hostnet. “It only made sense to add hosting services and domain registrations, and at that point things really took off for the company.”

Hostnet: Hosting is a growing market.

It was about five years ago that Hostnet completely shifted the focus to hosting and business services and they have been growing quickly ever since. The company now boasts nearly 60 employees working out of an office overlooking the IJ river in Amsterdam serving hundreds of thousands of customers who run the gamut from individuals to small and mid-sized businesses.

Hostnet is regarded as a leader in the Dutch hosting space, offering a one-stop shop where customers can get online, create brand awareness and grow their business or personal online presence. Hostnet offers low-cost domains, hosting and other solutions aimed at Small and Medium Business including email, Hosted Exchange and SSL certificates. For Large and Enterprise customers Hostnet offers high performance hosting services like Virtual Private Servers and Dedicated Servers.

Hostnet and OpenSRS Long-time Partnership

Hostnet has been an OpenSRS domain reseller since 2000 and uses OpenSRS to power domain registrations and management for a large part of their domain portfolio with the exception of the larger european domain registrations (Hostnet are themselves a .nl, .eu and .be accredited registrar).

De Brabander says the partnership with OpenSRS has played a key role in the company’s growth.

“Working with OpenSRS for the last ten years has contributed to the improvement our services,” he says. “Also, we were very excited to hear that Thorsten Einig has joined OpenSRS and we look forward to an even closer relationship with OpenSRS.” [editors note: Thorsten Einig joined OpenSRS in October, 2010 as the Managing Director for Europe and is based in Amsterdam].

Hostnet Premium Hosting Support

With a customer base of small and mid-sized businesses, support is an important consideration. Hostnet offers a full helpdesk site with tutorials, FAQs and other resources to help their customers use the hosting an domain services. And they have a full customer support team to provide the enhanced level of customer support that their business base requires.

De Brabander says the company knows providing top-notch support is a must. “We try to stay on top of the customer support by constantly adding easy-to-use features to our website and our hosting and domain services, as well as improving the communications skills of our employees,” he says.

Ensuring the company is stocked with top talent is another way it stays in the lead in a very competitive environment. Hostnet recruits from nearby Delft University of Technology, one of the best engineering and technical schools in the country.

The company’s commitment to its employees starts the day they walk in the door. New employees will find a bicycle waiting for them on their first day–bikes being a common mode of transportation in the Netherlands.

Discussing New TLDs at .nxt conference

Last week, I joined close to 200 other attendees at the inaugural .nxt conference in San Francisco. The conference, which was sponsored in part by OpenSRS, brought together industry leaders to discuss the impact of ICANN’s new Top Level Domains (TLD) program, which will likely see hundreds of new domain name extensions introduced to the Internet.

The conference featured a wide range of keynote speakers and sessions. Among the highlights was an update on the new TLD process from ICANN SVP Kurt Pritz (pictured below), a keynote by .CO registry CEO Juan Diego Calle on the runaway success of their re-launch, and an executive roundtable discussion (which included our CEO, Elliot Noss) on a wide variety of topics related to new TLDs.

In between the keynotes and excellent hallway conversations, I also attended some great sessions. And at the end of the two-day conference, I went home with several key takeaways:

Registrars are keen to carry new TLDs, but will be discerning about which they choose to sell. In the “Working With Registrars” session, I appeared on a panel with representatives from Go Daddy, VeriSign, Oversee and Network Solutions to discuss the opportunities and challenges new TLD operators faced when promoting their extension to registrars. It quickly became apparent that registrars were most interested in offering TLDs that had a compelling value proposition, would be easy to implement, and would be accompanied by strong marketing support.
People are still holding their cards very close to their chest. Obviously, lots of bids have already surfaced (here’s a partial list of potential applicants). However, some attendees were still hesitant to reveal details about their application. To me, this indicated we may have only seen a small fraction of interested applicants thus far.
The launch of new TLDs is not a matter of if, but when. Barring an eleventh-hour turnaround, the new TLD program will be approved and more forward. The next question is: when will it happen? Latest estimates have new TLDs fully operational by 2013, but that’s not a timeline set in stone. More details should emerge following ICANN’s upcoming international meeting in San Francisco.

The conference was a great opportunity to discuss one of the biggest Internet developments in recent years with some of the industry’s leaders. Once ICANN approves the new TLD program, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the announcement of the next .nxt conference.

Thanks to .net conference organizer Kieren McCarthy for the photos of the show and for putting them out under a Creative Commons License.

Holiday Hours: Family Day, Monday February 21

serviceguy-familyday-small Happy Family Day from the OpenSRS team!

We’ll be closed this Monday for Ontario’s Family Day holiday. We’re looking forward to spending some quality time with our loved ones.

Our Technical Support team continues to be available 24/7 to assist you.

Please note that during this closure, there will be:

No orders or requests processed for the following TLD’s: (.at, .fr, .nl, .ch, .li, .dk, .com.mx)
No special processing for .ca (registrant transfers, conflicting and municipal registrations) or .eu/.be (redemptions).

Here are the hours by department:

Department	Dates and Hours
Technical Support	Regular hours
Payments	Email support: payments@opensrs.org
Compliance	Closed Feb. 21
Service Bureau	Closed Feb. 21

StopBadware: Request for Comments Part II

A short while ago, I wrote about our friends at StopBadware and their initiative to draft a document that covers best practices when dealing with malware of all kinds.

The support received been fantastic and they’re now on the second draft of the RFC. This is an important issue that affects all of us. If you have something to say, StopBadware would really appreciate your feedback before this Friday (Feb 11).

From the StopBadware blog:

About two weeks ago, we put out an initial request for comments on a public draft of our new best practices. This RFC was met with insightful, eminently practical advice from our expert working group and the security community. After incorporating some of the suggestions from these groups, we have a second draft of the Practices ready for review and comment. The second public draft of StopBadware’s Best Practices for Web Hosting Providers: Responding to Malware Reports is available here in doc andpdf format.

This is intended to be the last draft of the Practices; we’ll be accepting comments until Friday, February 11, 2011. The final best practices document will be publicly available within a few weeks. Thanks to all those from our community and the security industry who have given us such dedicated thought and creativity during the course of this project!

You can join our mailing list here.

About StopBadware

StopBadware originated at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society in 2006. In 2010, they spun off as a non-profit organization with the support of Google, PayPal, and Mozilla. Their board of directors, chaired by PayPal Chief Information Security Officer Michael Barrett, also includes Vint Cerf (Google), Esther Dyson (EDventure), Paul Mockapetris (Nominum), Mike Shaver (Mozilla), and our executive director, Maxim Weinstein.