Registry Operator's Proposal - BUSINESS CAPABILITIES AND PLAN

D13.2.6. Resources required to meet demand. Provide a detailed estimate of all resources (financial, technical, staff, physical plant, customer service, etc.) required to meet the estimated demands, using at least the 10%, 50%, and 90% confidence levels.

Capital expenditures are expected to be the same in all three demand scenarios. We believe it is safer, more cost effective and time saving to implement a system with greater capacity now, than to upgrade later. Additionally, a system with greater capacity can respond better to potential spikes in customer usage and act as a redundant buffer should a portion of one system fail. Capital expenditures include $900,000 budgeted for servers and initial working capital needs. Other capital requirements will be provided by the Sponsoring Organization. Please see Section D13.2.13 of the Registry Operators Proposal for further discussion of capital expenditures for the Registry Operator and Section C12 of the Sponsoring Organization’s Proposal for further discussion of capital expenditures for the Sponsoring Organization.

The resources required for the three scenarios will differ primarily in the staff requirements. As the volume of the registrations increase over time in the three scenarios, the number of technical and customer service staff will increase. At the 90% Confidence level, both the customer service staff and the IT staff increase from 4 to 5 people by 2002 and remain at 5 until 2004. At the 50% Confidence level, customer service and IT staff both increase from 4 to 5 in 2002, to 6 in 2003, and to 7 in 2004. At the 10% Confidence level, the staff increases from 4 to 5, in 2002, from 5 to 6 in 2003 and from 6 to 9 in 2004.

Senior management, liaison to the sponsoring organization, legal and accounting labor are not expected to increase from 4 FTEs in our demand scenarios as the volume of work for these personnel is not expected to increase significantly with the number of registered users.

We anticipate drawing upon our already existing resources regarding staffing policies and basic equipment needed for basic office functions. In addition, we will also be able to draw on our principals’ experience with operating registries and registrars for handle strategic, operational and financial issues as they arise.

Please see section D13.2.11 for further detail of the operating expense items.