9 December 2003
Domainz's general manager Bernard Blake won't confirm whether the former monopoly registrar has turned a profit as it promised, but says "the company is very much on track - 2004 is very much looking fantastic".
Domainz was bought by Australian registrar Melbourne IT in August after former owner InternetNZ exited the commercial registrar market. Melbourne IT CEO Theo Hnarakis said at the time that Domainz would be profitable within three months. Melbourne IT paid around $2 million for the registrar.
Blake says the company is introducing new services to entice higher-paying customers and has already introduced the first of these, a corporate domain name management solution. Companies with multiple domain names can outsource the management of those names to Domainz as part of their registration process.
He says other new services expected to be launched early next year include website development, search engine optimisation and digital certification.
"We hope to launch those services early in January."
Blake says the company will also be expanding its New Zealand workforce next year. Currently Domainz employs 16 staff and is hoping to hire more sales staff in 2004.
Domainz had been the monopoly provider of domain name registrations until InternetNZ introduced a shared registry model. Once that system was up and running InternetNZ sold Domainz to Melbourne IT. Melbourne IT was, itself, the former domain name monopoly in Australia.