C15. Describe in detail the abilities of the applicant and the entities identified in item C13 to operate a TLD registry of significant scale in a manner that provides affordable services with a high degree of service responsiveness and reliability. Your response should give specifics, including significant past or present achievements and activities of the applicant and the entities identified in item C13 that demonstrate the described abilities. It should also include information about key technical personnel (qualifications and experience), size of technical workforce, and access to systems development tools.

DotOrg Foundation

The DotOrg Foundation was established in June 2002 to focus on setting the policies for the operation of the .org registry. For more information about the DotOrg Foundation and a description of the Foundation’s mission, directors and staff please see our responses to Questions C3 through C9.

DotOrg Foundation and Registry Advantage have signed a letter agreement committing the parties to enter into an agreement that will allow the Foundation to call upon the extensive resources of Registry Advantage in operating the .org TLD.  Immediately below, is a description of Registry Advantage and the services it will provide to ensure the effective and safe management of the .org registry under the supervision of the Foundation.  Presented below as well is material regarding additional non-Registry Function services to be provided by Kintera, which documents its capacity to provide the added value that would enhance and differentiate the .org registry.

Registry Advantage

Registry Advantage is an independent business unit of Register.com dedicated to providing outsourcing services to TLD registries. Its services include a shared registry system, a scalable and reliable DNS infrastructure, publicly accessible thin and thick Whois databases, as well as technical support, billing and customer service for registries and registrars. Registry Advantage has a demonstrated track record of success in migrating and operating TLD registries. Since its launch in mid 2001, Registry Advantage has signed seven ccTLD registries, six of which have already been migrated to operate on the Registry Advantage platform. In addition, Registry Advantage has signed agreements with 14 registrars, allowing them to connect to its shared registry system and make ccTLD registrations.

Registry Advantage offers significant financial and technical stability to ICANN as the proposed outsource provider for the .org registry. The financial stability of Register.com enables Registry Advantage to recruit and retain qualified technical personnel and to implement and deploy state-of-the-art systems and infrastructure.   Since it began offering registry services, Registry Advantage has developed significant experience relevant to the operation of the .org TLD.  Registry Advantage currently provides a full set of registry services to a number of ccTLD administrators.  The operation of these services includes:

• A Shared Registry System (SRS) supporting both the propriety Registry Advantage Simple Registration Protocol (SRP) and an Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) interface based on the 06/04 versions of the EPP Internet-Drafts.  Registry Advantage provides one of the few operational EPP registries in the world.
• A robust DNS infrastructure with DNS services provided from a DNS constellation spanning three continents.
• A Whois service that supports all of the ICANN required functionality to support the .org TLD.
• Additional registrar and registry services, including the Account Management Interface (AMI) and reporting tools.
• Billing and collections services.
• Flexibility and adaptability of these registry-registrar systems and interfaces, indicating that Registry Advantage will be well-placed to quickly implement VeriSign’s RRP and to transition registrars toward EPP and a thick, modern gTLD registry.

Capacity Tests

Currently, Registry Advantage provides for a total of approximately 50,000 domain names.  To ensure the suitability of its systems for the .org TLD and in anticipation of migrating the .org data and operating the registry, Registry Advantage performed extensive systems capacity tests including:

• Tested DNS operations and performance using the current .org zone file, as well as previous (larger) instances of the zone file.  In all cases, the system successfully responded for all names and performance at a single DNS location exceeding 18,000 queries per second.
• Simulated a similarly sized thick Whois registry by populating the database with the .org data set, plus other sample data.  Transactional operations, as well as functionality such as replication to the standby database and routine backups, continued to perform normally in all cases.
• Tested SRS performance by conducting tests against a database populated with the current .org data set.  The maximum performance of the SRS significantly exceeded the largest hourly volume ever experienced by VeriSign in its operation of the .org database. The tests simulated and successfully managed situations such as “add storms” without significant negative impact to the registry’s operations.

Historical Experience

In addition to its direct experience running a registry, Registry Advantage has also been able to call upon Register.com’s history as a domain name registrar.  Although registry and registrar operations are currently segregated, the Registry Advantage architecture, database schema, and core software set was largely derived from software that had successfully been used to support Register.com’s large DNS registrar operations.  To a large extent, these operations mirror or exceed the requirements of operating a DNS registry.  In particular:

• Register.com provides DNS services for many of its registrants.  This authoritative DNS service requires support for a greater variety of resource records and often for a much larger number of resource records per domain name in the zone file.  Register.com has provided DNS service for as many as three million domain names simultaneously.  This represents the largest collection of names administered by a single provider of authoritative DNS services in the history of the Internet.
• Register.com is required to populate a database with information about each domain name under its management.  This database includes a full set of social data as well as name server information and billing data.
• Register.com’s Third Party Protocol (TPP) provides its reseller partners with the capability of performing automated registrations through an SRS-like interface.  In addition to providing registration-related features, TPP also allows resellers to perform additional functionality such as updating the authoritative zone file information (such as A, MX or CNAME resource records) for each of their domain names.
• Register.com has developed high performance, highly scalable systems.  These systems have been proven capable of performing over one hundred million domain name registration related events in a single week.

This operational experience has proven invaluable in creating a highly robust registry infrastructure. During its first 12 months of operations, average uptime for Registry Advantage’s RRP (Registry-Registrar Protocol) systems has been in excess of 99.99%, and the DNS and Whois applications have operated with 100% uptime. These results are made possible through Registry Advantage’s network and systems infrastructure, which is built from highly reliable and scalable software and hardware components that are deployed redundantly across multiple international points of presence. 

Benefit to Registrars

Registry Advantage has significant experience in building orderly registration processes that foster competition and ensure appropriate rights and protections for registrars and registrants.  Registry Advantage designed the systems and processes for the .pro registry in full compliance with ICANN policies and the registry agreement (http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/pro/).  Since the .org model agreement is based on the same template as the .pro agreement, Registry Advantage already has the systems and processes – and checks and protections –  in place that would comply with ICANN requirements for .org.  For example, in addition to operating a registry in compliance with ICANN Service Level Agreement standards, the registry can offer the thick Whois service, assure compliance with the ICANN registry code of conduct and equal access requirements, and comply with the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and other dispute resolution policies.  For further detail on registrar protection, please refer to Question C21.

Registry Advantage draws upon Register.com’s core expertise in providing a simple, automated, secure and stable registration service, supported by excellent customer service.  Register.com has gained experience processing domain name registrations not only with gTLDs, but also in over 250 different country code TLDs (ccTLDs).  Registry Advantage has been able to leverage the registrar perspective and knowledge gained in implementing all of these various systems and choose the best practices and standards needed to effectively manage a registry.

In addition, Register.com has always been a leader in helping to formulate and implement policies protecting registrants.  For example, Register.com participated in crafting the UDRP, and its growing corporate customer base demonstrates Register.com’s continued commitment to providing an accurate Whois database, living up to UDRP standards, and providing innovative services to serve intellectual property interests.  In general, Register.com’s robust, automated systems, protected by security measures and allowing registrants the flexibility to manage their domains has made it an industry leader.  This experience, knowledge and innovation have been passed on to Registry Advantage, which provides analogous levels of service for its registry customers, and will therefore protect the current and future .org registrant class.

Leadership

Richard Forman, President, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, has served as Chief Executive Officer since March 1996 and President since March 1998. He has served as a Director since the Company’s inception in 1994 and as Chairman of the Board since May 1999. Since 1994, Mr. Forman has served as the President of Lease On Line, Inc., a real estate brokerage and
management firm. In addition, Mr. Forman has managed real estate in the New York City area since August 1992. Mr. Forman was formerly a consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, Inc. in its New York City and Sydney, Australia offices. In 1987, Mr. Forman graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Management and Technology Program, and received his B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Moore School of Electrical Engineering. In 1992, Mr. Forman received his M.S. in Real Estate from New York University.

Jack S. Levy has served as the Company’s General Counsel since October 1999. Mr. Levy was previously an associate at the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he represented companies in mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financings and joint ventures. His clients included E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co., LLC, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Panavision, and New Hope Communications Inc. Mr. Levy earned a B.A. from Harvard University and received his J.D. from Columbia Law School.

Rajiv Samant, Chief Operating Officer, joined the Company as Chief Operating Officer in June 2001.  Mr. Samant came to the company from the Walt Disney Internet Group’s portal, Go.com, where he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager. Prior to this, Mr. Samant was at IBM, in a number of senior executive positions, including General Manager of IBM’s Unix Operating System brand. From 1990-1996, Mr. Samant worked for McKinsey & Company, where he led the firm’s electronics practice development in Europe as well as its early efforts on the Internet. Prior to this, Mr. Samant served as a Product Development Manager in the High Performance Computer Systems Division at the Intel Corporation. Mr. Samant holds an M.B.A. from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, in addition to an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin Madison. He received his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India.

Jonathan Stern, Chief Financial Officer, joined Regsiter.com as Chief Financial Officer in June 2002.  From 1998 to 2002, Mr. Stern served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Lexent Inc., a telecom infrastructure design and installation services company, where he helped drive the transformation of Lexent from a private company with USD$50 million in revenue to a public entity with over USD$300 million in revenue. From 1990 to 1998 Mr. Stern was the Vice President and Controller for GAF Corporation, where he helped manage the USD$300 million successful Initial Public Offering of GAF’s chemicals subsidiary and was responsible for financial planning and forecasting, financial reporting and internal audit. From 1985 to 1990, Mr. Stern was the Vice President and Controller for Western Union Corporation. Mr. Stern holds a B.A. from Brooklyn College and an M.B.A. from New York University. Mr. Stern also is a CPA.

Registry Advantage Personnel

Registry Advantage currently has eleven staff dedicated to registry outsourcing services: 8 technical and 3 business staff. The key technical personnel – the leaders of the software development, network and operations functions – are already in place. Registry Advantage has the ability to rapidly scale and recruit the necessary additional staff to migrate and operate the .org registry.  Drawing on the experience of its parent in rapidly building stable, secure, long-term, and highly functional operational units in order to meet the extraordinary growth demands of the Internet infrastructure business, Registry Advantage will be able to meet the needs of the .org transition and operations.

Business Personnel

The Registry Advantage business team has extensive experience in managing the ongoing business operations of the department, in particular:

• Account management, including interaction with both registrars and registries;
• Policy implementation, particularly with respect to ICANN policy and related issues;
• Sales, including the contracting with both registries and registrars;
• Outreach to various constituencies through the Internet, email, and marketing materials such as brochures and white papers; and
• Business development, which involves working with other entities to enhance Registry Advantage’s existing systems and to offer larger scale, non-DNS related deployments.

The business team is responsible for the following activities as they relate specifically to .org:

• Negotiating and entering into the agreement to provide back-end registry services for .org;
• Providing account management and customer support services to the DotOrg Foundation and its registrars;
• Providing billing support and services to the DotOrg Foundation and its registrars;
• Offering support on legal and policy issues as needed; and
• Offering support on sales and marketing initiatives, also as needed.
• Overseeing OCI and Code of Conduct requirements

The business operations team is composed of:

Elana Broitman, General Manager, Business Development and Policy, has over three years of corporate policy experience with ICANN and in the international trade and property fields, and helped lead Register.com in its application and contract negotiation for the new .pro gTLD. She also spent six years as Counsel to the International Relations Committee of the U.S. Congress. She has a J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law.

Richard Webby, General Manager, Technology and Operations, has a dozen years of experience in Internet and telecommunications software development. His six years of technology management include serving as Vice President at a leading wireless applications service provider. He has a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Lauren Gaviser, Director, Strategic Initiatives, has been with the Company for over three years, and has served in both business development and policy roles.  Ms. Gaviser was formerly a consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton in the Communications, Media & Technology Department in New York City.  Ms. Gaviser earned a BA from Duke University and received her MBA from Columbia Business School.

Key Technical Personnel

The Registry Advantage technical team has extensive experience in maintaining a state-of-the-art registry infrastructure and adding new features when required.  The technical team has significant experience in each of the following areas:

• System administration, including the design and maintenance of large-scale, heterogeneous environments;
• Software development, with an emphasis on C++ and Java development and a focus on high reliability, mission-critical applications;
• Network engineering, including the design and implementation of large, multi-provider networks and the use of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP4); and
• Database design and administration including experience operating a domain-name database with millions of names and multiple terabytes of storage.

Jordyn Buchanan, Director of Technology, has 10 years in systems management and architecture. He is a member of ICANN’s Names Council. His six years of technology management include three years leading the technology department for a regional ISP. He has extensive experience working within technology and policy fora.

Richard Roberto, Director of Operations, has 14 years in mission-critical enterprise operations management. Notably, he was the Chief Technology Consultant on the purchase and sale agreement of a major equity derivatives company between two of the world’s largest financial institutions. He is also the former Head of Information Services at the Japan-based satellite office of a leading U.S. brokerage house.

Charles Sun, Lead Software Engineer, has spent a dozen years developing software for the Internet, telecommunications, and data-communications industries. He also has eight years of software project-management experience. He spent two years studying in the Ph.D. program in Computer Science at New York University.

The technical team is responsible for the following activities:

• Maintaining the smooth operation of the registry infrastructure;
• Monitoring all systems and taking corrective action if any system becomes unstable or unusable;
• Developing new features, modifying existing functionality or improving the capabilities of the system, e.g., implementing the final version of the EPP protocol, creating new reporting functionality for use by registrars, and improving the performance of the existing software;
• Deploying new hardware and software without disrupting the continuing operations of the registry;
• Transitioning existing TLDs to the Registry Advantage system;
• Identifying and correcting any flaws in the registry's hardware or software; and
• Performing and maintaining routine data backups of the system.

Detailed resumes of the leadership, business team and technical personnel associated with this application are provided in Attachment C.

Future Hires

Upon the award of the .org bid, Registry Advantage plans to add staff to support the migration and operation of the registry. Such additional staff would include:

• Registrar support (24/7 operations) – 10
• Billing and Accounting – 4
• Project Manager – 1
• Systems Administrators – 2
• Network Engineering – 2
• Database Administrators – 2
• Software Developers – 4
• Quality Assurance Engineers - 2

These new hires would bring the total complement of Registry Advantage personnel to 38 staff.

Systems Development Tools

Registry Advantage maintains a comprehensive suite of systems development tools. Our software engineers develop in C++, Java and Perl on Linux, Sun Solaris and Windows platforms with the latest development tools, libraries and compilers. The core registry software built by Registry Advantage uses the C++ Open Source libraries known as ACE and TAO.

The Registry Advantage team follows a software development process that draws selectively from structured methods (e.g., SDLC), object-oriented methods (Rational Unified Process) and agile development methods (eXtreme Programming). Software designs are documented using the Unified Modeling Language and created using the ArgoUML tool. Network and database designs are authored using tools such as Visio and ERwin.

Kintera

Kintera’s end-to-end Internet solutions – including online fundraising, e-Commerce, interactivity, community building and direct marketing – have made the company a leading Application Service Provider (ASP) for the nonprofit community.  Kintera has built expertise in online software development and complicated network design, implementation and maintenance. The firm has recognized competence in Unix and Microsoft environments, transactional applications, database administration, routing and all aspects of networking and network security. Kintera’s team is a leader in online fundraising, having filed 12 patents in the area. Its customer service and account management have helped Kintera build a loyal clientele.

Kintera’s proprietary products and services help nonprofit organizations:

• Lower the costs of a campaign and minimize administrative time, so a nonprofit staff can focus more on their cause.
• Build an accurate email list of interested prospects.
• Grow an email list and make it an invaluable asset.
• Generate websites for special events and fundraising initiatives.
• Improve volunteer solicitation and reach of a cause with the Friends Asking Friends™ product.
• Grow the reach of an event and generate higher donations through online fundraising.
• Track success of a program by using pre-formatted and custom reports to follow giving patterns moment by moment throughout a campaign.
• Improve communication with powerful emails, keeping supporters up to date on an organization’s progress.
• Enable regional and national organizations to grow while maintaining a consistent infrastructure with a uniform brand and business practice. Advanced rollup features allow a national organization to share expertise across their affiliates.
• Offer low cost versions of the products for lower budgeted organizations

Experience

In a short time, Kintera has become a leading trusted ASP to the nonprofit segment.  Kintera has gained invaluable experience operating its Kintera Sphere service platform in a secure manner for nonprofits with over 2,000 nonprofit events launched and/or contractually committed in the first three months of 2002 alone.   Kintera’s Internet-based applications, consisting of Donor Relationship Management (DRM), Content Management System (CMS), e-Commerce and eMarketing tools, include the processing and collection of data associated with online registrations and donations.  Kintera Sphere is currently being utilized by a variety of nonprofit organizations, ranging from Philanthropic 400 groups such as the National American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and Big Brothers Big Sisters to small nonprofits with limited budgets, which can access event websites through Kintera’s Sphere EZ system.   Please see Attachment H4 Kintera Testimonials.

Achievements

Kintera’s clients have achieved unprecedented online success in spreading the word about their cause, cultivating new donors and volunteers and raising funds quickly and efficiently.  These successes are, in large part, the key reason why the DotOrg Foundation is partnering with Kintera for the purpose of enhancing the .org TLD.  Kintera’s reputation is documented by the quality and accomplishments of Kintera’s clients.  Their trust in Kintera and their success, in turn, in cultivating the trust of their donors (the general public) lends itself to the DotOrg Foundation’s goal of fostering trust among .org registrants and Internet users.Kintera Sphere yields the industry’s highest conversion rates of donors and participants to solicitors and advocates. This in turn yields increased donation revenues and volunteer activity. In recent events such as AIDS Walk New York, Leangles and Sandi ego, American Heart Walk St. Louis, MS Bike Tour New York City, Arthritis Jingle Bell Walk San Diego, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters Bowl for Kids Sake Cleveland, an unprecedented 16% of online participants went on to become solicitors and advocates by sending emails to friends and family, requesting support for their causes. On average, each participant sent 20 emails that, it turn, resulted in 26% donations averaging USD$54 each. These statistics are industry milestones, beating all other similar marketing services in support of such events.

The following Kintera Nonprofit clientele case studies are representative:

• MS Walk/NYC, April 2002
  http://www.kintera.com/home/clients/casestudy4.asp
• Komen Race for the Cure™ Sacramento, April 2002
  http://www.kintera.com/home/clients/casestudy5.asp
• Samara Jan Turkel Foundation, December 2001
  http://www.kintera.com/home/clients/casestudy3.asp
• Million Dollar Duck Race/NYC, June 2001
  http://www.kintera.com/home/clients/casestudy.asp

The MS Walk/NYC and Komen Race for the Cure Sacramento case studies and customer testimonials are provided in Attachments H4 and H5.

The following websites are examples of actual events:

• May 2002
  AIDS Walk, NYC:  USD$965,668 Raised Online
  <http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=2302>
• May 2002
  American HeartWalk, St. Louis:  USD$1,019,621 Raised Online
  <http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1602>
• May 2002
  American HeartWalk, Oklahoma City:  USD$636,465 Raised Online
  <http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1603>
• April 2002
  Multiple Sclerosis Walk, NYC:  USD$453,180 Raised Online
  <http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1665>

To visit other nonprofit clientele initiatives using Kintera event central: http://www.kintera.org

Kintera Personnel

Kintera currently employs 80 people. The key personnel at Kintera are from the USA, China, India, Mexico, and Israel and bring a unique blend of technical, industry and business expertise.

Kintera Technical Personnel

The Kintera technical team has extensive experience in developing and maintaining secure state-of-the-art software services in an ASP environment.  The team has significant experience in each of the following areas:

• Application System Platform architecture and administration including design and maintenance of highly accessible, secure and scalable software applications.
• Network Operations, including the implementation of large, multi-site hosted systems and networks.
• Database design and administration including operating a content and contact database containing millions of entries across multiple owners.  Expertise include Microsoft SQL and Oracle.
• Security and access control management of server infrastructures in granting and gaining access to multi-tiered customer files, end-user access controls, and secure partitioning of data.
• Operating system expertise and platform development support within Unix, Linux and MS 2000 networked environments.
• Software development expertise in C++, ASP, and Java for high-availability, mission critical applications.

Key Technical Staff

The key Kintera technical personnel and their qualifications (in brief) are: 

Jeane Chen, PhD, EVP Engineering

• 16 years with IBM Research Division
• Program Director of Interactive Media, IBM Software Group
• Led software development for IBM’s Internet and Digital TV initiatives
• Received “Best of PC Expo” award June 2000
• 24 filed and 8 to be filed patents; 30 publications
• PhD Electrical Engineering, Columbia University

Ephraim Feig, PhD, CTO

• 18 years IBM Research Division
• Program Director of Emerging Technologies and Internet Division
• 29 patents and 96 publications
• Fellow, IEEE
• PhD Mathematics

Dahlia Bona, Director of Platform Development

• 18 years database systems development and management
• Prior Head of Database Operations and IT at Comps, Inc, data warehousing co.          
• MS Engineering

Lonnie Brownell, Director of Product Development

• 25 years in Software Design and Engineering
• Former Director of ASP platforms at Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• BS Engineering

Julie Schwartz, Managing Director of Product Marketing

• 10 years experience in Non-Profit Industry and Marketing
• BS, Health and Sports Studies
• American Heart Association
• March of Dimes
• Arthritis Foundation

Kintera Founders

The founders have a long history of philanthropy and involvement in nonprofit organizations. Two of the founders have medical degrees and a deep commitment to healthcare organizations and institutions.

The Kintera business team has extensive experience and a proven track record in developing, managing and executing business plans and operations, in particular:

• Account management - interacting and managing nonprofit and noncommercial relationships and implementations
• Business Development - establishing and developing strategic alliances and expanding service offerings and capabilities through third party contracts, contract negotiations, and partnership management
• Product Marketing - researching and developing product packaging and launching outreach initiatives that include email, direct mail, marketing collateral, technical white papers, and viral communications
• Sales/Consulting - contracting with noncommercial and nonprofit organizations and associations
• Legal – drafting contracts, patent applications and protecting intellectual property

Business Operations Staff

The business operations team is composed of:

Harry Gruber MD, CEO

• Led four successful public companies
• Viagene, First gene therapy company
• Aramed, central nervous system company
• Gensia, drug delivery company
• INTERVU, leading Internet ASP (purchased by Akamai for USD$2.8B)
• Founder and CEO of one of the largest, most successful ASP providers
• MD, BA at the University of Pennsylvania

Dennis Berman, EVP

• 25 years of legal, policy and business practices
• Former law partner of Fred Adler, NYC venture capitalist
• Securities lawyer for technical companies
• Harvard Law, Wharton and London School of Economics

Steve Klein, VP Business Development and Marketing

• 12 years of business development and marketing experience
• Member of the founding executive management team at Kintera, Inc.
• Established alliances with Microsoft (USD$30M), AOL/TimeWarner (USD$20M), AT&T
• Co-founder of General Instrument’s SURFboard™ Cable Modem Program
• MBA, BS Engineering

Allen Gruber, VP Business Operations/Policy

• Board Certified Neurologist
• Former Consultant to Blue Cross/Blue Shield
• Founder and Clinic Director of a Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinic
• Faculty of University of Texas
• Founder and initial board member of INTERVU and Kintera
• MD, BA University of Pennsylvania

Julie Schwartz, Managing Director of Product Services

• 10 years experience in Non-Profit Industry
• BS, Health and Sports Studies
• American Heart Association
• March of Dimes
• Arthritis Foundation