When Network Solutions put financial hooks into Centraal's keyword-naming service last week, the domain-name purveyor was preparing for a future when Coca-Cola was more important on the Internet than coca-cola.com.
"Network Solutions is really wise to catch this early," said Rick Miller, analyst with International Data Corporation (IDC). "They've got 10 percent [of Centraal] now, and they have options to buy another 10 percent. I wouldn't be surprised if they bought [the company] entirely."
Centraal vice president Ted West called Wednesday's deal "a significant step forward in the infrastructure of Internet."
Said Miller, "This is more of a defensive move than anything else."
Centraal currently has registered 15,000 "RealNames" in its database -- no more than a blip on the Internet, according to Miller. Network Solutions has registered 3 million domain names since its inception five years ago.
Network Solutions (NSOL) has been the registrar of US domain names under an exclusive contract with the US Commerce Department. It will surrender that authority to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in 2002.
In anticipation of that day, the company signed a strategic agreement with Centraal to promote and fund its RealNames service.
Instead of using Web addresses based on domains -- for example, ibm.com -- the RealNames database matches simpler words and phrases to the underlying Net address -- in other words, ibm. If it were to become the standard method of Internet addressing, users would only need to know keywords, not the domains.
