Key-Systems

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From ICANNWiki

Type:	GmbH (limited liability - Germany)
Industry:	Internet, Domain Names
Founded:	1998
Founder(s):	Alexander Siffrin
Ownership:	KeyDrive S.A.
Headquarters:	Im Oberen Werk 1 66386 St. Ingbert
Country:	Germany
Products:	domaindiscount24 (dd24), RRPproxy, BrandShelter, SkyWay-DataCenter, KS Registry Services, DN Worker
Employees:	KS HQ 50+, KS group 100+
Website:	Key-Systems.net
Facebook:	KeySystems
Twitter:	@Key_Systems
Key People
Alexander Siffrin, CEO, CTO Thorsten Smeets, Dir. Registry Relations Bonnie Wittenburg, EVP, US Jessica Pfeiffer, Marketing/Human Resources Volker Greimann, General Counsel Andreas Soll, Product Manager

Key-Systems Group is an ISP and hosting company. It was founded in 1998 by Alexander Siffrin and received it's accreditation from ICANN as an official registrar in October, 2000. The German company has subsidiaries in the USA and Mexico and provides services to its end-customers and resellers through its three domain portals: RRPproxy.net, BrandShelter.com, and DomainDiscount24.com. ^[1]

As of May, 2011, Key-Systems has over 3,2 million gTLD & ccTLD domains under its management.^[2] There are another 1 million domain names registered by companies of the Key-Systems Group. The company is currently ranked second among leading registrars for global TLDs in Europe,^[3] and is the 11th largest ICANN registrar worldwide.^[4] They currently offer the fully-automated registration of more than 280 top-level and second-level domains.^[5]

Key-Systems Group is part of KeyDrive SA, which was formed through a merger between Key-Systems and NameDrive in July 2011. In February, 2012, KeyDrive acquired former rivals Moniker and SnapNames from Oversee.net for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, KeyDrive became the world's sixth largest ICANN-accredited registrar.^[6]

History

• In 1998, Alexander Siffrin founded Key-Systems GbR (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts), a civil law partnership company, in Friedrichsthal/Saarland, Germany.

• Key-Systems GbR was turned into a limited liability company Key-Systems GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) in 2000. ^[7]

• In 2000, Key-Systems launched DomainDiscount24.com (DD24), the domain portal for end-customers. On November 10th, 2000, ICANN announced that Key-Systems GmbH d/b/a DomainDiscount24.com had qualified to be accredited as a domain name registrar for the .com, .net, and .org domains.^[8]

• In 2001, Key-Systems launched its reseller portal RRPproxy.net. That same year, Key-Systems joined DENIC, an association for the administration of the German ccTLD (.de). Key-Systems also participated in the first meetings addressing the implementation of a domain dotEU TLD for Europe.

• Key-Systems participated in Verisign's IDN testbed in 2002. At this point, Key-Systems provided more than 60 different domain name extensions.

• In 2004, the company was relocated from Bexbach to Zweibrücken. In 2010 Key-Systems' headquarters were relocated from Zweibrücken to St. Ingbert, in its own company building.

• In 2007, Key-Systems took over the former Verisign Namestore System, migrating more than 200,000 domains to the RRPproxy platform.

• In October, 2008, Key-Systems invested in a software developer company Avarteq.^[9]

• In May, 2009, Key-Systems founded its US subsidiary in the Washington D.C. metro area, and Bonnie Wittenburg was announced as Executive Vice President for Key-Systems USA, Inc. ^[10] In November, 2009, Key-Systems opened another subsidiary in Monterrey, Mexico to focus on the Latin American Market.^[11]

• In July 2009, Key-Systems invested in DevKey Domain Management Solutions, buying 49% of its share.^[12]

• In 2010, Key-Systems took over the majority of AZ.pl, a leading Polish domain registrar company, moved to its new corporate headquarter in St. Ingbert and built its own TIER III datacenter (SkyWay DataCenter).^[13]

• Since July 2011, Key-Systems continues on as KeyDrive S.A., following a merger with NameDrive.^[14]

• In January, 2012, competitive Israeli registrar, Domain The Net, filed a preemptive lawsuit against Key-Systems over their respective brand management trademarks. The services in question are Key-System's BrandShelter, and Domain The Net's BrandShield. Key-Systems had previously filed a complaint noting that the BrandShield mark was confusingly similar; in response, DomainTheNet preemptively sued in order to beat out any forthcoming lawsuit from Key-Systems and establish that no one entity can claim "Brand[blank]" as a trademarked term.^[15]

• In February, 2012, it was announced that Moniker and SnapNames were acquired from Oversee.net by KeyDrive S.A..^[16]

Products and Services

Key-Systems provides services to its end-customer's resellers through its three domain portals.

• domaindiscount24 (dd24): domain registration portal, including web and mailspace offers available in five different languages, targeted at retail customers.

• RRPproxy]: for domain-resellers of both gTLD and ccTLD domain names, RRPproxy provides registration of domains through a WebInterface, Direct-Socket-Access, Email-Template, or API.

• BrandShelter: helps to manage and monitor huge domain portfolios, and includes support in planning, executing and operating a TLD including registry services by KSregistry.

Awards

Deloitte Technology placed Key-Systems 2010 23rd in the “Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Award Contest,”^[17] after being placed 22nd in the list of the fastest-growing technology companies in Germany in 2009 and 8th place in the “Deloitte Fast 50 Technology Award Contest” in 2008.

References

External Links

• Key-Systems Corporate Website