Domainz chief steps down but not out

By Aimee McClinchy

Friday 15th September 2000

The departure of Domainz chief executive Patrick O'Brien signaled the end of the internet old guard at the national internet registry.

But Mr O'Brien, who bore the brunt of ISPs' criticism, has not disappeared from the domain name scene; he is to head a Singaporean dotcom registry and will compete for the international business of his former dot.nz customers.

Mr O'Brien's departure came only weeks after Domainz' shareholders passed a vote of no confidence in the sitting board and voted to take away its monopoly role.

It opened the way for a new chief executive alongside the new board to implement the changes a working party led by professor John Hine wants to introduce to the monopoly.

His replacement will be in a temporary role with much reduced responsibility.

Mr O'Brien is to be vice-president and general manager of i-DNS.net registry, which allows people to register .com website addresses in languages such as Chinese and which do not use script. I-DNS.net's service is being sold to ISPs (registrars) and registries as an added-value service for their customers and it plans to sell the service to ISPs in New Zealand.

Domainz chairman Robert Gray would not reveal the other arrangements of Mr O'Brien's departure three months before the end of his contract. The board had not played a part in it.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet