"There is a lot of phenomenal intellectual property that has not found its way into the marketplace yet."

As Silicon Valley Reboots, the Geeks Take Charge

] Pivotal Private Equity announced today that it has signed
] an agreement to acquire control of Network Solutions, the
] world's largest domain name registrar, for $100 million.

I'm a little surprised to see corporate raiders picking it up... These people are probably confused about its value. BTW, the restrictions on Verisign's contract are now totally different. The whole thing will need to be reworked.

Pivotal Private Equity to Acquire World's Largest Domain Name Registrar, Network Solutions

] But Sclavos also said he thinks much of the fury against
] VeriSign originates with companies that compete in the
] retail sale of domain names. Severing that part of the
] business could, in theory, blunt some of the critics.

The last time Verisign talked to the press about something it "might" do it was a week before SiteFinder went online. Given that this is the Mercury News they are literally fishing for buyers here.

They do a poor job of spinning the sale. NetSol is loosing market share by the barrel. Reason? Netsol charges several times what their closest competitors charge for the same service. Doing business with them is like flushing money down the toilet. In general the margins in the DNS business are very small and everyone struggles. There are basically too many players, but because changing "providers" is so difficult no one goes out of business. They just hang by threads.

I was always under the impression that the Verisign/Netsol deal made sense because these guys were selling higher end services into their customers, like security services and certificates, and they could tack the domain names on as a sort of one stop shopping. Basically make it convenient for businesses who might be willing to ignore playing a $30 premium. I think that offering registrations makes sense as it goes along side offering certificates, and without the family of services Verisign offers NetSol will die a quick death out in the cold on its own. This business is obviously not going to drive growth for them, but it might sweeten their margins. I imagine that it might be picked up by a competing registrar just to own the customers.

The PR position is, frankly, interesting. Instead of, say, treating the engineering community with some respect, they claim to think they can solve their problems by jettisoning another problem that the community has with them. Geeks hate NetSol because we all had domains from them back when it was free, and we recall not so fondly when we got that first bill (was it $80 something?). Most of the people who work in the alternative registrars did so because they felt that it was important to take control of this out of NetSol's hands.

However, getting rid of NetSol is not going to help Verisign now. Their executives continue, even in this article, to sling mud at the technical community in an attempt to discredit them. Why would any move they made improve their position in the eyes of a community they apparently think is totally insignificant to their business? Fact is, it won't, and they know it.

Verisign is pursuing this for another reason, which is not discussed in this article. Most of the restrictions on their management of the tlds which were referenced in ICANN's demand that SiteFinder be shutdown are restrictions on anti-competitive behavior vis-a-vis other domain name registrars. If Verisign is NOT a domain name registrar then they don't need to worry about creating a level playing field between the access they have, and the access that other domain name registrars have. Many of the restrictions on their activity in the ICANN contracts would go away.

Its hard to say if this move is specifically directed at making SiteFinder legal, or if Verisign has any other tricks waiting in the wings if the contractual concerns with SiteFinder are resolved in their favor. What IS clear is that this is an important move in the fight over SiteFinder, and its implications could be significant for those who don't wish to see the "service" restarted.

Verisign to sell off Network Solutions, keep tlds

] I believe the Unix workstation users who are buying Macs
] are small in number and not enough to boost Apple sales
] on their own. But they're key players -- the same type of
] people who snuck PCs into the corporate environment under
] the cover of darkness while their overseers remained
] wedded to mainframes and other bigger computers. These
] are the folks who'll soon be making a lot of the buying
] decisions in IT departments. So they are the future, and
] they promise a bright one for Apple.

I was pondering this a year ago, but the stock is overvalued (much more so now then it has been in the past) and there are some things that Apple has gotten wrong (like printing).

BW Online | October 1, 2003 | Finally, an Opening for Apple in IT

] In August, Raymond, president of the Open Source
] Initiative (OSI), acknowledged that the attacker was an
] "experienced Internet engineer." In a posting to
] internetnews.com sister site Linux Today, Raymond, while
] noting that he did not actually know the identity of the
] person responsible, said, "I had been hoping, and
] actually expecting, that the attacker would turn out to
] be some adolescent cracker with no real connection to the
] open-source community other than a willingness to stand
] down when one of its leaders asked. But no; I was told
] enough about his background and how he did it to be
] pretty sure he is one of us -- and I am ashamed for us
] all."

Looks the shooting is on the other foot! This puts the Open Source community in the extremely ugly position of either turning in their friends or protecting criminals, in a very public way. Ever wonder what it feels like to be Yasar Arafat?

Open Source community responsible for DOS attacks...

] For the first time in three years, money pouring into
] business start-ups is on the rise.

USATODAY.com - After long dry spell, start-ups get cash

] Now 43, the veteran programmer is urging his 18-year-old
] nephew to stay in suburban Chicago and is discouraging
] him from pursuing degrees in computer science or
] engineering.
]
] "I told him, 'Unless you're planning to do this as a path
] to technical sales, don't do it,"' said Kerrigan, who
] lives in Oakland. "He won't be able to have a career
] designing and building stuff because all those jobs have
] moved to India."

CNN.com - Tech jobs leave U.S. for India, Russia - Jul. 14, 2003

] (Dave) Winer says. "This is not a place for innovation.
] I've given up."

LA Times feature on Sillicon Valley... The wasteland...

Special Silicon Valley Issue

] The music industry has been spoiled. They have controlled
] the distribution of music by producing CDs, and thereby
] have also protected their profits. So they have resisted
] Internet distribution. Six years ago I asked Sony Music
] to start working with IBM to figure out how to offer
] secured distribution of their content over the Net. But
] nobody in Sony Music would listen. Then about six months
] ago, they started to panic.

A very candid conversation with the CEO of Sony.

Sony's CEO Unplugged :: AO

Some interesting IT job statistics. Don't move to San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, or Detriot... Move to Miami, San Diego, or Las Vegas... Follow to palm trees. Also, demand for Novell Netware is rising (?!?#!)

I can only image that the environment is so bad that whatever slight increase in need for Netware people might have occured looks huge in comparison to everything else. Just because you're the only thing going up doesn't mean your "hot." That may go for the cities listed as well...

[IP] IT job trends: Move where the palm trees are