Register.com

[frattay22]

What are your views on the company itself?


Thanks,

Frank


Mods if this is in the wrong area please move it.

[swiftdomain]

Mostly negative. A company without a clear stategy, has proven to go in a direction and then retreat(afternic, shoutloud, .pro). They had nearly $200 Million on hand and decided to return the money to shareholders(to avoid being a takeover target) vs. expand or move into new areas.

A very dazed and confused company. I think they will continue to shrink and eventually go away or be purchased.

[swiftdomain]

There were rumors about a merger with tucows, I wonder what happened to that

[datums]

The company has a very clear strategy. They were the number 2 test bed registry, once the NSI monopoly came down. They manage to stay in business as all the other DOT COM's crashed.
As far as Afternic it was a mistake, who would have known the market was going to crash. .pro they must have not seen any need to keep investing in it. This is not a 200 employee company, they financially stable, and as far as their systems go, I don't think any other registrar can really compare.

With Register.Com you can pickup the phone at anytime and get a live person, 800 number. They have their own Call Center Building. I believe pricing is the biggest issue when using them. They have not dropped their prices to $6 bucks because they value their service. But if you want a cheaper domain with register.com you can check out NameBargain.com which is their budget domain site.

Currently they have a huge hosting promotion which includes TV commercials. hostingbyregister.com. This is something they should have done a long, long, long time ago

Cheers

[Adam]

Originally posted by swiftdomain:

Mostly negative. A company without a clear stategy, has proven to go in a direction and then retreat(afternic, shoutloud, .pro). They had nearly $200 Million on hand and decided to return the money to shareholders(to avoid being a takeover target) vs. expand or move into new areas.

A very dazed and confused company. I think they will continue to shrink and eventually go away or be purchased.

Swiftdomain,

Not necessarily a "dazed and confused" company in my eyes. Not sure if you're in a position to fulyl comprehend reasons behind Register.COM returning the investment capital to their shareholders. Only someone from the inside of the company could fully answer as to why they returned the capital.

Put yourself in their shoes, presumably, they had some doubts as to whether the services/products they were going to launch with this 200,000,000 USD capital. And thus, it was a great idea for them to back out and return the money. While it's true to say you gotta take risks to succeed in business, you've also gotta not be comlpetely ignorant to details.

Let's put this into a worse case scenario; Register.COM are lsited in the NASDAQ (quote: RCOM). Now currently their shares are $5.60 a pop (at the time of writing). Now, if they pulled out all their share capital and put it into furthering their company, but the actual investment went pear shaped, then quite simple their shares would not be worth anything close to $5.60 and it is qutie clear that a welathy individual or organisation will buyout 100% if not, the large majority of shares in that company. Thus becoming the new directors/owners. Yes i've cut the story short a little bit but thats effectively how easy it is for a publically traded company to be taken over.

I think the direction of the company although jaded, is fairly clear. Although they offer extra services (primarily focused towards businesses) their investor relations show a strong emphasis on the fact that they're main product/service is domain name registration. From the investor relations website it is clear to see that domains are their primary source of revenue as opposed to their subsectors such as hosting and incorporation, which leads me to a kind of obvious conclusion of that Register.com does haev a clear strategy and direction.

[swiftdomain]

Adam

In response I am very close to an individual who held a leadership position within register.com so my opinion is partly based on that. The opinions about the strategy is based on poorly throught purchases afternic, shoutloud, their UK operations and even namepro. It is good to see them focus on the core business (domains) but I think it has taken them a but to get to this point.

[Adam]

swiftdomain,

I am actually thinking about talking direct to some RCOM management guys about a bigger investment that I'd rather not do through the NASDAQ but as private debenture. If you could PM me your name etc, I would appreciate it. It's not that I doubt you, just if you're saying your affiliated with them, or was previously then I will reconsider my investment if you think so strongly against the company you worked in :)

And about taking time to get to their goal... well many companies take time; BurstNET started off selling software/hardware, now look!

[swiftdomain]

Adam

The individual is no longer affiliated with rcom so the point is moot. If you are looking to invest in rcom by all means. Perhaps it is a good buy from an investment perspective

[Adam]

Okay, thanks for the reply.