Announcements, Articles, Partner Focus

Partner Focus – Namespro.ca

With an industry experience of 15+ years, Namespro.ca currently is one of the top performing Canadian Domain Name providers. The company started out as a domain name reseller in 2002 and since then, they have always focused on providing top-notch web presence products. Over the years, they witnessed a steady growth of their domain name portfolio and that’s when they decided that it was time for them to level up.

For most domain name resellers, getting ICANN accredited is the best way to establish their brand as the most trustworthy and credible one in the industry; and that’s exactly what Namespro.ca aimed to do. They were looking for a trusted and experienced partner who would help them sail through the entire ICANN Accreditation process effortlessly. This is when their acquaintance with LogicBoxes happened.

In a short tête-à-tête with Vicole So, Managing Director at Namespro.ca, we asked him what exactly was their thought behind choosing to partner with LogicBoxes and how fruitful has this decision been. So let’s hear it from Vicole:

Q. Can you give us a little background on Namespro and when you started off?
Vicole: Namespro.ca has been in the domain business for over 15 years. Like any start-up domain company, we started off being a domain reseller. Our portfolio grew over the years, and we felt that it was the time for us to acquire our own ICANN accreditation. That was when LogicBoxes contacted us and offered to help us achieve that goal.

Q. What were your requirements exactly?
Vicole: We were looking for a partner who brought in a lot of experience and expertise which is a must-have for a process as cumbersome as the ICANN Accreditation process. Also, it was absolutely essential that they have a robust and scalable Registrar management platform.

Q. How exactly did LogicBoxes help you achieve what you wanted?
Vicole: Logicboxes extended their end-to-end assistance in getting us ICANN Accredited. They guided us through the entire process, right from building our application, gathering all the documents to liaising with ICANN as well as the Registry on our behalf. They also set up Registry connections for us which was otherwise a big undertaking technically. The entire Accreditation process went smoothly, and we went LIVE as an ICANN Accredited Registrar in less than 6 months’ time.

Q. What’s the biggest advantage you’ve seen of partnering with LogicBoxes?
Vicole: The most significant advantage since we partnered with LogicBoxes is definitely the acquisition of ICANN Accreditation. Being ICANN Accredited, not only do we save cost in our domain business, but it also helps us present a better image to our users by not being a reseller.

Q. You have also been using LogicBoxes’ platform to run your Registrar operations. How has that been going for you so far?
Vicole: Logicboxes has a very comprehensive management system that makes domain management very easy. They take care of all the Registry-related matters for us which saves our time and cost involved in dealing with each Registry separately. Moreover, Logicboxes offers many different products so we can easily provision and sell them on our own Website.

Q. What about additional web products & services? Did you think of extending your product portfolio beyond domain names?
Vicole: Yes, with LogicBoxes offering a wide range of domain related products such as Hosting, SSL Certificates, G Suite by Google Cloud, etc. and with a very functional API, these products were easily migrated to our business for us to sell.

Q. How would you describe our dedicated Support & Account Management team?
Vicole: So far our experience with Logicboxes is a pleasant one. LogicBoxes has always offered exceptional support when we needed it. Their technical team works around the clock and is usually able to help us with all queries. Same goes for our Dedicated Account Manager, Royston Walder, who is extremely helpful and always responsive.

That’s all from Namespro.ca, our Partner in Focus for this time. Do watch this space for more updates on our other Partners!

Announcements

Monthly Bulletin: July 2017

We’re back with the second edition of our Industry Round Up. Read on to know more about all the industry updates from the Domains & Hosting space that took place in July.

  • TLD Updates
  • Mergers & Acquisitions
  • ICANN Announcements
  • Net Neutrality

TLD Updates

  • .BLOG hit the 100,000 Milestone this Month: The new gTLD, .BLOG, announced that it has crossed 100,000 registrations since they entered General Availability last November. This has been a great start for .blog, which now averages around 12,500 new adds per month.
  • Most Popular New gTLD in China: .SHOP was awarded as the most popular new gTLD in China at the Global Domain Summit which was held earlier in July. 
  • Non .COM Premium Domains Top the Sales Chart: It’s a rare case when .COM doesn’t rule the premium domain sales chart. July experienced one of those weeks with .ORG ruling the sales chart with Ruppi.com selling BitcoinCash.org for $48,888.
  • .NET Price Hike: On July 28, 2017, Verisign announced a hike in annual prices of a .NET registration, renewal or transfer from $8.20 to $9.02. This hike will be effective from February 1, 2018.
  • .AMAZON TLD Update: The e-commerce giant has been fighting for its brand TLD – .AMAZON, since it was denied approval in 2014 from government advisors. They received a lot of grief from representatives from Brazil and Peru as they argued that the name has geographic connection to the Amazon ecological habitat. However, recently Amazon filed for Independent Review and have been given another shot at acquiring .AMAZON
  • .McDonalds terminates their New gTLDs: McDonald’s recently sent a notice to ICANN terminating their brand TLDs – .McDonalds and .MCD, joining a bunch of recent .brand TLDs who have terminated their contracts with ICANN
  • .COM/.NET update: The .COM & .NET registry released its results for the second quarter of 2017 on July 27th. Verisign reported a revenue of $289 million for the second quarter of 2017. They ended the second quarter with 144.3 million .COM and .NET domain name registrations.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

  • SiteLock expands Website Security with Patchman Acquisition: SiteLock, a global leader in providing website security solutions, finalized its acquisition with the Dutch web security startup – Patchman. This deal will help SiteLock magnify its reach and provide better quality support and services to the Hosting provider community. This will also double the number of websites already protected by SiteLock.
  • GoDaddy sells PlusServer for $456M: GoDaddy, the world’s largest Domain Registrar, has signed an agreement to sell their PlusServer business to BC Partners for a value of $465 million. This deal is expected to close by the end of August. GoDaddy is looking at utilizing the funds received from the sale plus cash in hand to repay its €500 million bridge loan.
  • ArcServer acquires Zetta: ArcServer, an XX company, was looking at adding new talent and cloud capabilities to expand their Unified Data Protection portfolio and found Zetta to be the perfect match to meet their business requirements. This acquisition would help advance ArcServer’s Cloud solutions with Zetta’s technology and expertise.
  • United Internet signs an agreement with ProfitBricks: United Internet has an entered in an agreement with the other shareholders of ProfitBricks GmbH – a technologically leading cloud hosting specialist for complete acquisition of the company. United Nations has been a stakeholder in ProfitBricks and this complete takeover will help strengthen their existing product portfolio of Cloud solutions and will enable them to attract clients looking for a professional cloud infrastructure.
  • Rightside-Donuts Update: ICANN has given a go-ahead to Rightside – Donuts merger. As per the agreement, Donuts acquired Rightside for approximately $213M. This deal will add 40 new gTLDs to Donuts’ existing portfolio of 200 gTLDs – the largest in the industry.

ICANN ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • Registry System Testing Site is Now Live: The Registry System Testing (RST) ensures that a Registry Operator has the capacity to operate a new gTLD in a stable and secure manner. Every Registry Operator must ensure that it has established operations as per the criteria mentioned in the Applicant Guidebook. Any changes to back-end operations may require a new RST test to ensure the stability of those services.
  • No Dates for Next gTLD Round: Despite there being a keen interest from Registries, ICANN sent a letter to the Registries Stakeholder Group stating that the agency will not be setting a date for the next round of new gTLD applications anytime soon.
  • ICANN Publishes Updated gTLD Marketplace Health Index: An updated report of the gTLD Marketplace Health Index had been released by ICANN, dated July 6th, 2017. This index takes us through the current statistics and trends related to gTLDs. You can view the entire report here.
  • Candidates for ICANN 60 Fellowship: ICANN announced names of 60 individuals from 50 selected countries to participate in ICANN’s Fellowship Program at the 60th Public Meeting in Abu Dhabi. This program is an initiative by ICANN in order to create a broader and more diverse base of knowledgeable constituents with preference given to candidates living in underserved and underrepresented countries around the globe. You can view the list of selected candidates here.

Save The Internet!

July 12th, 2017 was the day when some of the world’s largest internet companies together participated online to protest against the Federal Communication Commission’s idea of repealing the existing rules of net neutrality.

‘The Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality’ – as the protest was called, got internet giants like Reddit, Netflix, Amazon, Google, Facebook & more to post banner ads, blog posts and alerts over the internet to show their support. Twitter supported this cause by heavily promoting the #NetNeutrality hashtag.

That’s about it for the month of July. We hope this post has helped you catch up with all the happenings in the industry during this month. Stay tuned for more, next month!

Announcements, Articles, ICANN Announcements, Industry News, New gTLDs

Monthly Bulletin: June 2017

In an effort to keep you updated with the latest happenings in the Domain Industry, we’d like to introduce you to our monthly Domain Industry Roundup series. In our first edition, we’ll cover all the buzz and the need-to-know information from around the Industry that took place in June 2017. Read on to learn more:

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Important ICANN announcements & updates
  • Cyber attacks taking over the internet
  • New TLD updates

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

  • Donuts acquires Rightside: Donuts Inc., a leading domain name registry for new gTLDs and Rightside registry announced their merger on June 14th, 2017. The two companies have a long history of conducting business together and have finally taken the plunge and combined their forces.

The merger agreement is valued at $213 Million approximately for the entire business. This deal will add 40 new gTLDs to Donuts’ existing portfolio of 200 gTLDs – the largest in the industry. Furthermore, it will also include the transfer of the popular retail domain registrar – Name.com.

It will be interesting to see how this partnership will affect the current market situation.

  • Vodien advances growth with Dreamscape Networks: Australia’s leading domains & hosting provider, Dreamscape Networks was looking at expanding their business in the South-East Asia region. What better way to kickstart this thought process than by acquiring Singapore’s largest hosting company – Vodien Group!

Vodien Internet Solutions is a web hosting provider in Asia that provides reliable and high-tech performance hosting solutions to over 35,000 companies and 2,10,000 users.This merger looked like the ideal deal to expand their business in Singapore without having to establish their own hub there.

This merger would help both the companies offer their existing customers add-on high-value products and services. The agreement is valued at 29.67 million AUD to wholly acquire Voiden Group.

  • Rackspace seals the deal with TriCore: Rackspace closed its acquisition with Tricore in June. Rackspace called this their largest acquisition as compared to the 8 closures they’ve had before. This merger will give Rackspace the ability to not only manage a company’s cloud services but also provide expertise in enterprise app management, especially EPR management.

CYBER ATTACKS TAKE OVER THE INTERNET

A large number of companies around the globe have been crippled by the recent cyber attacks. Here’s a look at the major cyber attacks that made news in June.

  • Petya Ransomware: A large scale ransomware attack is rapidly spreading around the globe affecting telecoms, banks and other businesses. The attack caused computers to stop functioning, leaving a ransom note demanding $300 in bitcoins. The attack infected  2,000 systems and servers approximately and was spread across the UK, US, France, Germany, Russia. Ukraine has emerged as the epicenter of the damage during this cyber attack, affecting its Central bank, airport and the Chernobyl power plant.
  • Cyber attack on UK Parliament: The UK parliament has been the target of a cyber attack resulting in gaining access to few email accounts of Member of Parliaments and their staffers, leaving them unable to access their emails.  
  • WannaCry Attack: WannaCry or WannaCrypt is a ransomware attack that holds a computer’s files hostage in exchange for bitcoins. This cyber attack took place in May 2017 and affected a number of countries around the globe, demanding $300 in bitcoins to regain access to the files. U.K. security services, as well as the U.S. National Security Agency, have suspected North Korea to be responsible for this cyber attack.

ICANN ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • Kobe and Montréal Declared as Meeting Sites for ICANN 2019: ICANN’s 64th Public Meeting will be held in Kobe, Japan for the Asia-Pacific region. The meeting will be hosted by the Japan Network Information Center from March 9 – 14, 2019. Montréal, Canada has been picked to host ICANN’s 66th Public Meeting for the North American region. 
  •  
  • ICANN’s Report on Africa DNS Market Study: ICANN released its final report on African Domain Name System Market Study earlier this month.This study was conducted to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the DNS sector in Africa and to understand if there was a need for an observatory to monitor the growth and development of the DNS  market. The research lead to the following conclusions:
  1. The total annual value of the African Domain Name market is $52 million approximately.
  2. There is potential growth in the African domain name market in the future.
  • Global Indigenous Ambassador Program: ICANN announced the Global Indigenous Ambassador Program on June 14, 2017. This program states that two indigenous ambassadors will be selected from underrepresented communities. This initiative will help ICANN to be more efficient with the next generation of the global internet community. This program is targeted towards served and unserved tribal or native communities and must meet the ICANN Fellowship Program Criteria.
  •  DENIC eG approved as New gTLD Data Escrow Agent: Denic – the managing organization of Germany’s ccTLD, has been approved to provide data escrow services to new gTLD registry operators.

NEW TLD UPDATES

  • .INFO Registry Price Hike: Effective July 1, 2017, the .INFO Registry increased the prices of .INFO domain registrations, renewals and transfers by $0.89.
  •  .AFRICA Domain Name Registrations: The highly demanded new gTLD – .AFRICA, closed its Sunrise period on June 2, 2017. According to the reports, over 930 domain names have been registered during this phase. This TLD is currently in the General Availability phase and is open to everyone to apply for.

These are some of the important events that made news in the month of June. To stay updated with the key happenings from the industry, watch this space for our next bulletin.

 

 

Announcements, Current Promos, New gTLDs

It’s Raining Promos This July!

July is here in full swing and we’ve got a bunch of exciting domain name promos which won’t burn a hole in your resellers’/customers’ pockets!

For the whole of July, you can offer your customers over 40 fun & attractive TLDs at heavily discounted prices.

What Promos are available this month?

Even though .COM & .NET continue to be the most sought after TLDs among the masses, new gTLDs are steadily making their way through.

Read on to know more about our latest additions for this month:

Who Can Use These TLDs?

– Are your customers looking at adding a personal touch to their blogs, businesses or websites? .ME domain is the perfect choice to help them carve their own memorable identity on the internet. It’s short, easy to remember and versatile.
Promo Price: $3.99

– This TLD is perfect for fashion enthusiasts who are looking to showcase their fashion skills or those who have the passion for all the latest trends that are ruling the fashion industry. Right from online boutiques to fashion bloggers, this domain is just the right pick.
Promo Price: $8.49

– The .GARDEN domain namespace is a designated platform for professional gardeners, landscape architects and urban designers. Offer this niche TLD to your customers who are looking at starting up their business in this profession. Hurry!
Promo Price: $6.49

– .COLLEGE is a non-restricted TLD, apt for all colleges, schools, universities or for institutes associated with knowledge. Apart from the obvious option, it also makes for an interesting TLD choice for campus-friendly businesses such as cafés, bookstores and stationary shops.
Promo Price: $6.99

Take a look at the top-most lucrative promos we have in store for you, in addition to the ones mentioned above:

TLD Promo Price
.ASIA $1.99
.CLUB $0.99
.INFO $3.99
.ONLINE (Global) $6.99
.ONLINE (Only India) INR 95
.ROCKS $2.99
.SPACE $3.69
*.STORE $5.99
.TOP $1.99
.WEBSITE $3.99

*.Store – Promo begins 8th July.

In addition to these, we have 5 renewal promos:

TLD Promo Price
*.TOP $4.99
.ONLINE $19.99
.WEBSITE $9.99
.SITE $14.99
.TECH $24.99

View our entire list of domain name promos here. We hope you make the most of these promos. Happy selling!

Announcements

WordPress Hosting now LIVE!

Looking at tools to help your customers build their own website? WordPress is the way to go!

WordPress, being the world’s most popular tool for creating websites, enables one to create any style of websites, ranging from a simple blog or complex portals to a full-fledged business site. To add to this, one can build their very own online store as well!

Contrary to belief, building a website is no rocket science. WordPress enables your customers to create a site without going through the hassle of extensive coding and also provides them with an array of free site designs & plugins to choose from.

What’s More?

Intuitive Dashboard : All our plans include a feature-rich and easy-to-use Control Panel which will help your customers focus on their core business of building beautiful websites while we take care of the technicalities.

Privacy Protection : Our hosting plans include pre-integrated cloud backups powered by CodeGuard – The premier cloud based backup solution. In addition to that, add a SiteLock seal to your customers’ website to equip their websites with industry-best malware protection.

Scalability & Migration : As their websites grow, our varied plans provide your customers with scalability as high as 8 CPU & 8GB RAM and also smooth migration of their WordPress website to a VPS or a dedicated server in just one click.

Integrated Caching : We also provide an advanced caching system that stores and delivers frequently used files for fast paced loads.

We’ve Got Your Back!

We believe in providing world-class support and strive hard to ensure that your customers receive the best. Our support team is available 24/7 on email, phone & chat and will be more than happy to attend to your queries.

So, here’s what we’re saying..

Help your customers kick-start their website building process with LogicBoxes’ WordPress Hosting today. Our plans start from $6.89/month.

Check out our Marketing Kit and the Knowledge Base for more details.