NetSol logo in the 90’s.
A new article talks about the story of Network Solutions, founded by two African-Americans in 1979 and its subsequent winning bid of the Internet’s sole Registry.
Albert White and Emitt McHenry, co-founders of Network Solutions, then sold the company for $4.8 million in 1997 to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) – an amount not much higher than the selling price of Candy.com alone!
From the Network Solutions archives:
“In 1993, Network Solutions was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop the Internet’s domain name registration service. After developing the technology, Network Solutions became the first and only domain name registrar until 1999, when the domain name industry opened up to competition.”
The shock came in 2000, when SAIC sold Network Solutions to Verisign for $21 billion dollars.
