August 22, 2005 - (HOSTSEARCH.COM) - A war of words has been touched off among top domain registrars Network Solutions and Go Daddy after Network Solutions’ Champ Mitchell gave an
interview with CNET in which he talked down Go Daddy’s recent success. Go Daddy’s CEO Bob Parsons did not take kindly to Mitchell’s comments and ripped the Network Solutions chief and even posted an open challenge to the company to make public both company’s number of customers in his
blog.
Parson, an ex-marine, started off with these words for Mitchell, “’Never let anyone push you around.’ As a kid growing up, I can’t ever remember starting a fight, but whenever anyone threw a punch at me, I felt obligated to swing back. What follows are Mr. Mitchell’s comments and the truth as I see it.”
The tough Go Daddy CEO then ‘swings back’ and hammers Network Solutions on point after point including how many domain names each company has, how many customers they both have, their prices and their growth.
Then Bob really opens up and hits them with his open challenge:
“An open challenge to Network Solutions
Both Go Daddy and Network Solutions use the same public accounting firm. I challenge Mr. Mitchell to allow the accounting firm to examine both of our records and to provide a report we can make public, that will attest to our number of active customers. If Mr. Mitchell agrees to this challenge I think he will find out that the number of customers at The Go Daddy Group is far from "only a fraction" of those at The Network Solutions Group of companies.”
The blog is quite amusing when he compares the companies growth and what Mitchell calls Network Solutions’ ‘astronomical growth’ rate with Go Daddy’s showing Network Solutions 0 growth over a 2 month period as compared to Go Daddy's .5 million domain name growth over the same period.
The blog goes on to further embarrass Network Solutions with a side by side price comparison that leaves one wondering how Network Solutions has any customers whatsoever. Either way, this round-house haymaker thrown by Parsons is sure to draw a response from Network Solutions and the ensuing domain registrar flame war should be a fun one to watch.
