Yesterday was the deadline for the submissions of responses to the .NET re-bid RFP. As of my last count, there are five companies that I am aware of that submitted proposals for the .NET rebid.

Three of these were quite publicly announced, Afilias, Denic, and Verisign. The other two bidders are Multi-Stakeholder groups.  Sentan and Core++.

Sentan appears to be a Joint Venture between .jp and Neulevel, and Core++ is ISC, Telfonica, and .br, with participation from Core, Nida (.kr), and .zaDNA (.za).

These are all strong players with what I am sure are very compelling proposals, and it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

What’s Next?

Here is the description of the next phase of the process called “Evaluation and Reporting Period”. (source: .NET Request for Proposals [PDF]):

“ICANN will select an independent third party to manage the evaluation of the .NET proposals. That entity may utilize additional independent technical and business/financial experts to carry out that evaluation. Any such experts will be selected based on their experience, talent and skills as they apply to the evaluation task as outlined in the RFP.

This process will evaluate both the public and the non-public portions of the applications against the criteria in the RFP. As indicated above, the evaluators will first determine whether an applicant meets the absolute criteria set forth in this RFP. Thereafter, but only with respect to those applicants the evaluators determine have satisfied the absolute criteria, the evaluators will evaluate the applicants against the relative criteria, and will preliminarily rank the applicants from strongest to weakest based upon performance against the relative criteria. The evaluators will then prepare a preliminary written report on each applicant, noting substantive comments and questions. This written report on a given applicant will be provided privately to that applicant only, and each applicant will be given a specified number of days to respond to the report. All responses must be in writing. When the time period for responding to the evaluators’ preliminary written report has expired, the evaluators will review their initial evaluation and ranking, together with the responses from the applicants, and prepare their final rankings of the applicants.

The final ranking of the applicants, together with the evaluators’ final written report in support of that ranking, will be provided to the ICANN Board of Directors. A redacted version of that report, with confidential information about any applicant redacted, will be posted on the ICANN website. After the posting of the evaluators’ report and rankings, the applicants, the internet community and the public at large will be entitled to comment on the report, the rankings and other topics of interest to them relating to the selection of a successor .NET registry operator.

Immediately following the announcement of the evaluators’ final rankings, the applicant who was ranked the highest will be invited to begin intensive and speedy negotiations with ICANN on the terms of the .NET registry operator agreement. ICANN’s proposed form of agreement will be posted online on or about 31 January 2005. If the highest ranking applicant and ICANN are unable to reach a mutually acceptable agreement within two weeks following the release of the rankings, then (i) ICANN will prepare for the ICANN Board a summary of the contractual points in dispute, upon which the applicant will be invited to comment prior to its submission to the ICANN Board, and (ii) the ICANN staff will immediately begin negotiations with the next highest ranked applicant with the goal of reaching an agreement (and related appendices, as appropriate) mutually acceptable to that applicant and ICANN. Each applicant should review ICANN’s proposed form of agreement when it is posted, and be prepared to forward to ICANN immediately following the posting of the evaluators’ final rankings the applicant’s proposed changes to ICANN’s form of agreement, if the applicant is the top-ranked applicant. Each applicant should also have appointed a negotiating team with the necessary authority to negotiate the agreement and be prepared, if that applicant is the top ranked applicant, to send that team to the Los Angeles area to meet in person with ICANN’s negotiating team within a few days following the release of the rankings. Negotiations over the terms of the agreement will commence immediately following ICANN’s review of the top-ranked applicant’s proposed changes to the agreement.”