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| foundation = Flint, Michigan (1993) | location = Toronto, Ontario | key_people = | industry = Internet services | products = OpenSRS Ting Hover | revenue = $80.9 million USD (2009)〔(Edgar Online Financials. "TUCOWS INC /PA/ Financials" Jan 17, 2011. )〕 | operating_income = | net_income = $12.2 million USD (2009)〔 | num_employees = ~175 (2012) | market cap = 24 million USD〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Company Profile for Tucows Inc (TCX) )〕 | parent = | subsid = | homepage = (tucows.com ) | alexa = 25,121 ()〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= tucows.com Site Overview )〕 | footnotes = }} Tucows Inc. is a publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest domain registrars and operates Hover, and OpenSRS, a platform for domain resellers. In 2012, Tucows launched Ting, a wireless service provider, and continues to operate its namesake directory of shareware and freeware software downloads. The company was formed in Flint, Michigan, in 1993. The Tucows logo is two cow heads, a play on the homophone "two cows". ==Company history== Scott Swedorski started Tucows in 1993 to provide users with downloads of both freeware and trial versions of shareware. The name originally was an acronym for "The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software".〔Al Harberg, (DP Director. "Tucows' founder and president Scott Swedorski announced earlier this week that he has resigned from Tucows" ), November 30, 2003.〕 Internet Direct, owned and operated by John Nemanic, Bill Campbell, and Colin Campbell, acquired Tucows in 1996.〔 STI Ventures acquired Tucows in 1999.〔 The company employed roughly 30 employees in Flint, Michigan, in 1998 with additional employees in Canada. Scott Swedorski personally oversaw day-to-day activity in the Flint office located in the White House building on Beecher Road in Flint for several years. In 2000, Tucows acquired ''Linux Weekly News''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=LWN.net Weekly Edition for January 17, 2008 )〕 In 2001, Tucows became a wholly owned subsidiary of Infonautics, and after acquiring Tucows, Infonautics changed its name to Tucows,〔Paula J. Hane, ("Tucows Sells Two Former Infonautics Services" ), ''Information Today'', August 26, 2002.〕 a business tactic called a "reverse takeover". On August 26, 2002, Tucows sold eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com, its search and reference services properties acquired during its merger with Infonautics, to Alacritude.〔 In 2004, Tucows acquired Boardtown Corporation, a billing software provider. In January 2006, Tucows completed its acquisition of certain assets of Critical Path, an outsourced email services provider. In June 2006 Tucows paid $18 million to purchase Mailbank.com Inc, a company that owns over 17,000 domain names for common surnames like smith.net or brown.org. Mailbank generates income from selling advertising on the websites of the name-based domains and also from customers who want e-mail accounts with their surname as the domain. On June 15, 2006, Noss disclosed that the portfolio of NetIdentity's surnames acquired by Tucows represents at least 68% of surnames in the United States and Europe.〔("Tucows Podcast on Its NetIdentity Acquisition - Transcript" ), ''Seeking Alpha'', June 15, 2006.〕 Noss disclosed that the cost of the acquisition was $18 million.〔 On February 19, 2008 Tucows announced that they were launching a "Personal Names Service" using their portfolio of 39,000 surname domain names.〔 "The launch of the Personal Names Service marks the complete integration of the surname assets we acquired with NetIdentity into our wholesale channel", said Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows.〔("Tucows Launches Personal Names Service" ), Tucows Press Release, February 19, 2008.〕 On August 26, 2006, Tucows won an eBay auction for the web calendar site Kiko.com. The company planned on rolling Kiko's features into their existing email platform.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Why We Bought Kiko.com )〕 On July 27, 2007, Tucows acquired ItsYourDomain.com (IYD), another privately held ICANN-accredited wholesale registrar offering domain services through a network of over 2,500 affiliates with over 700,000 domains under management, paying US$10.35 million.〔Jay Westerdal, ( "ItsYourDomain acquired by Tucows" ), Domain Tools, July 30, 2007〕 ItsYourDomain.com managed 699,951 domains compared to Tucows's 5,919,987, at the time of the sale in July 2007 ItsYourDomain.com's monthly growth of 29,181 exceeded Tucows growth of 21,126.〔(Registat. "Domain Names under Management" July, 2007. )〕 By June 2008, Tucows had a total of three domain name registration services called ItsYourDomain (IYD), NetIdentity, and DomainDirect. Tucows decided to discontinue these three services, and merge them into one new domain name registration service, called Hover. Hover is a simple domain registration service powered by Tucows Inc, that started in July 2008. All IYD, DomainDirect, and NetIdentity customers are forwarded to Hover.com to resume their domain needs.〔(Say Hello to Hover )〕 On November 6, 2008, Tucows announced that they were launching Butterscotch.com, an online video network that with video tutorials to explain Internet technology and that the site was beginning with 35 video tutorials with plans to reach 500 clips by Spring 2009.〔( "Tucows Sweetens Technology Learning with Butterscotch.com" ), Canadian PR Newswire, November 6, 2008.〕 On October 14, 2011, Butterscotch.com producer Sean Carruthers stated production was shut down.〔(Twitter-Sean Carruthers. Butterscotch shut-down )〕 In December 2014, Tucows launched RealNames offering e-mail service using surname domains obtained with acquiry of Mailbank.com Inc. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tucows」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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