Newsmaker: Who says there are no second acts?

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that this business is worth a substantial portion of that and so do the investment bankers. We have the growth part and the fun part of the business. I mean we have double-digit growth, which is something we did not have under VeriSign. We had declining sales under VeriSign because we were constricted in what we could do, and I don't say that critically. VeriSign had some large corporate issues that took precedence over our desire to grow a business.

Where does the company go from here?
Mitchell: We're relaunching the brand and trying to make it clear that our identity has changed and how we do business has changed.

When I walked in the door, this company had the worst customer service I've seen in 30 years of business--and I was one of the customers. I absolutely hated them. It has gone from 30 percent abandonment rate and over an hour of wait time to under 3 percent abandonment rate. We were just nominated by the American Business Awards and made the finals of best customer service in the country. We have an 87 percent high-satisfaction rate versus when I came in the door and more than 50 percent of them were trying to get away from us.

And of course there is no similarity in the people, because the people who had the monopolistic attitude were allowed to go home, and we have an entirely new management change.

Any plans to go public?
Mitchell: We certainly are looking at that as an option. As you know, the markets are looking pretty nice right now. Our numbers are looking very strong, we're showing astronomical growth, and we're highly profitable. You know, our free cash flow margin is 20 percent. There are very few business that can claim that. We're in excellent financial position. We've got a growing customer base, we've got a growing business and we're increasing the number of products and services we sell to people online. So yeah, we're in a good position to do that and we're looking at it.  

More Newsmakers

Their customer service

He's right that their customer service used to be really bad.

Sounds like he's moving the company in a good direction now.

Welcome to Reality

Network Solutions had a monopoly and charged accordingly. The company doe snot have the customer base due to the fact that comapanies like GoDaddy.com and DomainPet.com are charging less. If the product was lesser quality or the customer service was not there it would be a different story, even with the lesser price. The fact that these companies are offering improved CS and products at a lower price is the winning recipe. His response that GoDaddy has less customers that purchase more domains and that their main product and focus is on the software is rediculous. Only the future can tell the outcome but I don't see Network Solutions gaining the customer base, through Small Business or otherwise. It was fun reading but not reality....

[sheridanwilliam]

Network Solutions' SMOKE AND MIRRORS

I first became acquainted with Network Solutions when they were a minor division of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) where I worked for several years.

SAIC saw the "irrational exuberance" of the market in about 1998 and took Network Solutions public (at $13 per share). They sold the stock and made several billion dollars, an obscene profit for a division they only paid about $5 million for just a few years before. It was, undoubtedly, one of the best deals EVER in computing, probably second only to the price Bill Gates paid for the CP/M clone (he paid $50,000) later marketed as MS/DOS and PC/DOS (he sold copies for $50 each on every PC ever made before Windows!)

Verisign, the biggest suckers EVER, paid some 16 - 21 billion for Network Solutions, wrote it down by about $10 billion after they realized they had been 'had', and is now a much smaller and humbled company.

When their stock tanked to about 1% of its' former value, they had to dump Network Solutions and did so for $60 million in cash, a $40 million note and a retention of 15% of the stock. BUT, they retained the top level domain registration for the .com and .net domain, the real gem of the company.

So, what they sold, was the customer facing, retail end of the business, in competition with Tucows, GoDaddy, and a host of other small, very nimble and tenacious companies.

Network Solutions has only one great asset, the name, and one other asset, customers DUMB ENOUGH to stay with them and pay inflated fees for service available anywhere.

Today, Network Solutions misleads customers, tells lies about both themselves and their competition, and will try to fool unsuspecting customers into believing they are stil the authority on .com and .net registrations.

Truth be told, they play second fiddle to GoDaddy.com (over 20% behind them) and other firms. They neither innovate nor do they create. They are now in a struggle to retain customer base, and I believe they will not be successful.

Look for GoDaddy or Tucows to purchase their list when they hit bottom in a few years.

[twhiting9276]

Hillarious!

Years ago, Network solutions sold domains @ $50+, because they were it in the business. Now, they sell them @ $35 with no hosting and wonder why people take their business elsewhere?

It's time for these people to wake up and see what they're doing as what it is, ripping people off. Not only are they ripping them off, but they're refusing to support them as well. No matter what is said, the support behind netsol flat out just sucks, STILL, today.

"But of course, you know, Go Daddy sells at an extremely low price point, and they do that to sell their software. They're really a software provider. They build their own software and use the domain as an acquisition device for customers. They don't have nearly the number of customers that we do. They have lots of people who buy lots of domains--in other words, tech folks who own lots of domains because they're the people who buy their software."

I find this absolutely humorous. As a small business owner, AND a godaddy customer, I know just what drives people to GoDaddy. Not the "software" (though, the software is decent), but the fact that the pricing is unbelievably great. I mean, come on, $9 / year for a domain? Whereas, with NetSol, you end up paying almost 4x that price?

Network Solutions is trying to copy GoDaddy, that's all. They complain because they're trying to pimp software, yet that's exactly what NetSol is trying to do, pimp their own software, and services. Unfortunately, their prices are , yet again, unrealistic, in the current market.

Let's face it, NetSol is using an old, outdated model. They STILL think they have the monopoly, when clearly they have anything but. In fact, they're losing more and more customers daily (not gaining, as they would have you believe) because of the fact that they can not adapt to the internet and advertising required.

Give 'em a couple years, they'll either wise up, and quit ripping people off pricewise, or lose what few customers they have now.

[Jeff Sturges]

Network Solutions

I recently had Network Solutions build a web sight for my company, www.mnhtac.com. I was given a schedule for the process from start to completion. The nightmare started out by the web designer, ?will call him Nick,? Nick missed his deadline by five days. I was supposed to receive the web sight for review, have a week to review and make changes and than the sight would go live after the changes were made. Well, I received the review only to see it wasn?t even close to what I wanted by the use of their templates. The sight went live before I could make any changes. When I attempted to make the changes I was pushed off to three other designers. Still to this date, I have been unable to make the proper changes. I wouldn?t suggest for sanity purpose for anyone to do business with these animals. ?They truly suck!?

[zebra_tech]

I used to agree with you, but now . . .

This is very well written and just about every word is true. Network Solutions was a train wreck of epic proportions. However, as hard as it is to forget their egregious transgressions of the past, my recent experience has been unbelievably good.

I manage over 3000 domain names. Because I pick up many of them via drop auctions I have been forced to manage domains at over 30 different registrars, including all the top ones. After years of doing this, I have come to a conclusion which shocks myself: Network Solutions has turned things around to now have the best registrar systems by far.

The Network Solutions transfer systems, which used to be horrific, are now the easiest by far (for .coms and .nets -- .infos aren't on board yet). Their policies are customer-first when it comes to security, ease-of-use, transfers, DNS management, etc.. Their online account management is amazing -- it lets me set up different accounts for different purposes and manage them together in one interface. I can give others access to some of my domains but not others so everybody has only one login but we don't see the same thing. It's awesome.

I don't have to call them for support much anymore since their systems have gotten so much better, but when I do call their VIP support line, I always get a real live human being instantly, and they are some of the most helpful and articulate phone reps I have dealt with at any company in any industry.

Most importantly, their prices aren't as high as advertised if you just ask. I am in the Network Solutions VIP program, which means $7.95 for transfers and frequent promotions for new registrations and renewals. And they don't charge the bogus ICANN fee that GoDaddy adds to every registration.

Finally, search is important to me, and I know on good authority that both Google and Overture pay attention to where your name is registered, as one indicator of site credibility. That's plenty more important than a few pennies here and there.

[apluscomputer]

NetSol's 'ole rules too cumbersome

I used to have many of my domains registered with Network Solutions. I tried to register or simply transfer a church's website over to my hosting servers whereas I would not even charge the church for anything not even hosting. To transfer the domain name an email had to be approved by the old domain administrator's email address. I informed Netsol that there was no more such email address for that person that used to run the churches website. So it was really impossible to get apporval for the changes from the old domain administrator since he died or something. Now I was also asked to send the owner of the Churches License, picture ID and comany letterhead requesting all domain transactions be handled through me. But that still was not good enough for Network Solutions. All in all this went on for three months and finally I gave up and created a whole new domain name for the church and registered it with Godaddy.com along with all the rest that I removed from Network Solution and other registrars as well. It's true that they used to have the monopoly on domain registrations, However, they do NOT now. They really need to take a good look at the public's opinions and capabilities and also understandings of technical Internet related areas and become a little more compassionate to the new domains administrators needs and comprehensions. They lost my vote and by them lowering their prices will not attract me into going back to them. I'll stay with Godaddy.com

[EcomTech]

Network Solutions Adds Monster Commerce To Their Overwhelming Mess

As previously stated to the point of ad nausium, Network solutions has overinflated pricing for their unsuspecting customers and now they have added Monster Commerce to this mess. I think that the choice for Monster Commerce in joining the Network solutions team is probably one of the worst made decisions on the part of a company such as Monster Commerce. What kind of signal does MC send out to their customers when most people truly do look at Network Solutions as a poor solution for their domain registration needs. Why would anyone that has experience in the Internet IT industry pay three times the amount for products and services when they can simply go to a GoDaddy or similar type service and pay $8 or less for a dot com name? Now, Monster Commerce, who is a shopping cart based company joins a team that overinflates pricing structures to maximize on the unsuspecting "newbie" to the industry.

Can we expect Monster Commerce pricing to go from the $99 they charge now to $199 in the future? Maybe. Maybe not immediately. But over time, watch Network solutions destroy yet another company by pricing them out of the industry. Maybe this will ultimately help other companies who compete with Monster Commerce like XCart and Paypal, especially when Paypal is basically free.

With the internal problems at both of these companies, it is not going to be easy for the two to get along. We will all have to wait and see. One thing is for sure... things are bound to change, and it is ultimately going to be costly for all.