Afilias announced that it has acquired mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd.,
the sponsoring organization and registry operator for the .mobi
top-level domain.
Under terms of the private deal, Afilias Limited, an
Irish Limited company, has acquired all of the issued and outstanding
capital stock
of mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd. (known publicly as dotMobi), and plans to
continue operating dotMobi as a wholly owned subsidiary.
"Afilias
has long been a leader in launching new TLDs and now supports over 50
percent of the entire universe of registrations in TLDs launched since
2001," said Hal Lubsen, CEO of Afilias. "Our acquisition of dotMobi
reflects our long term commitment to the success of the TLDs we support
and the communities they serve. We are particularly proud of the
global success of the .mobi domain, and look forward to working with
the dotMobi team and the mobile community to build on this solid base."
Wireless and Mobile News has already started publishing a mobile website and will be launching a .mobi domain soon. If you haven't tried out our mobile version, please do. It looks much better on mobile phone including smartphnones such as the Droid, Nexus One, BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Cuve, BlackBerry Flip, LG Vu and any phone with an HTML browser. Please check out our Wireless and Mobile News' mobile website.
Afilias
and dotMobi have worked closely together since the Mobi JV (predecessor
to dotMobi) was started by Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft to apply to
ICANN for the .mobi TLD in 2004. Upon approval, Afilias provided
registry services in support of the successful launch in 2006, and
today there are nearly one million .mobi registrations. Now more
established, dotMobi will benefit from the increased focus that a
seasoned registry expert like Afilias will provide.
"The
mobile Web continues to evolve and expand, and Afilias' strategic
domain expertise combined with mobile industry support will be a
powerful accelerant for .mobi growth," said Trey Harvin, CEO of
dotMobi. "Afilias' strategies for growing top-level domains have
directly resulted in several of the world's largest domains, and we are
excited to work closely with Afilias' management to achieve dotMobi's
full potential."
"With its excellent registry and DNS
support, Afilias has been a close partner since the beginning," said
Jerry Easom, Chairman of the Board of dotMobi. "This partnership,
coupled with the success of dotMobi in furthering acceptance of the
mobile web, makes moving the ownership of dotMobi to Afilias a natural
progression. dotMobi founders, who include some of the largest
companies in the mobile space, are looking forward to supporting
dotMobi and the .mobi domain with involvement in both the MAG (.mobi
Advisory Group) and the PAB (dotMobi Policy Advisory Board)."
Afilias
provides registry and DNS services for more than 15 million domains,
including more than 950,000 .mobi domains registered worldwide. In
addition, Afilias supports .INFO, .ORG, .aero, .ASIA, .AG (Antigua and
Barbuda), .BZ (Belize), .GI (Gibraltar), .HN (Honduras), .IN (India),
.LC (St. Lucia), .ME (Montenegro), .MN (Mongolia), .SC (the
Seychelles), .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).