Before going into what we have planned for this year dear customer, I would like to share with you some of our accomplishments during 2009.

Last week, which came and went with the summer breeze, we added some wonderful services to what Gandi has to offer you...

In 2010, the geography of the Internet is set to expand significantly, as ICANN will liberalise the market for domain name extensions. Gandi have commissioned a report from The FutureLab to see how consumers and businesses view this change.
More about the liberalisation process

Is this a squatting opportunity or a branding opportunity?

2/3 of businesses don't realise domain extensions are being liberalised next year. But those businesses that do know about this (like Deloitte) are excited about the opportunities in the areas of global branding. However corporates are also concerned that brand protection mechanisms need to be in place at the new registries, a view that has been raised by Microsoft.
More about the impact on businesses. Inc video interview with COO Gandi.net

Will the net become full of pointless domains?

Many consumers are confused about what liberalisation means and are concerned by the rise of squatting, phishing and advertising clogging up the domain space. However they do feel a real connection with localised domain names, e.g. .london, .paris. nyc, etc., and communities they are interested in, e.g. .music, .movie, .sport. There is also a growing Generation Y group interested in self publishing and being associated with certain brand names like .facebook, .myspace, .moonfruit.
More about the impact on consumers. Inc video interview with Marketing Director Gandi.net

Will this mean the end of 'Dot Com'?

Will 'Dot Com' decline with the advent of new geographical, brand and interest group based extensions. Or will this give Dot Com a chance to clean up its act and reclaim its prime real estate from pay per click ads, squatters and unresolved web addresses.
More about the evolving landscape

The evolving landscape of the internet following liberalisation

Why did Gandi commission this independent report

At Gandi we feel strongly about the future of the internet. We commissioned this report because we want to keep the domain space free for consumer and commercial use. We think this is an important enough issue that people need to understand the impact on them as consumers and businesses. How do you want these new domain territories to be governed? and are there lessons to be learned from how we've used our existing domain space?
More about the report

Download the report in full

To comment on this come to our special report pages

Spring is here! Spirits are lifted and it is time to enjoy fun in the sun, and sharing colorful postcards all over the web! This is why we have launched our second Gandi SiteMaker competition with the theme: Vacation get-aways!

Is there a special place where you dream of spending your vacation more than anywhere else in the world? Do you want to share it with everyone so that they too can have a wonderful time?

Create a website about this dream location using Gandi SiteMaker and you might win a E.P.C Inspiron Mini9 offered by our partner, Dell, as well as a free year's subscription to Gandi SiteMaker Pro.

To participate, you simply need to have an available Free Gandi SiteMaker plan. We will only accept sites made using the free version of Gandi SiteMaker, so that everyone has the same chances of winning. If you would like a quick example of one, here is one that I made in under 2 hours (I am slow), only using elements available in the Free pack, as well as some personal photos.

Your websites will be judged on the following criteria:

General ergonomics, the graphic cohesion of the site, originality, clarity of information, final touches, and finally, the warmth that it gives off! We want you to give us the desire to go there and to dream of a vacation at that spot.

As we enjoy visiting your websites at Gandi, our entire staff will be voting on the websites. For once, it will be us that judge your work...

Ah, there is one more thing! The goal of this type of competition is to make the internet more colorful, and so let your imagination run free! We are not limiting the number of websites allowed and you can even make your website on one page if you want. And as always, we are keeping the competition fun and laid-back. There are no rules, no lawyers, etc. We are just doing this out of pleasure and as among friends; Fewer rules means more fun

The competition has already begun, and it will end on June 30tht. Please send your website address to us at whoisdabest@gandi.net.

As for us, we will be putting on our sunglasses!

The current competitors are:

http://www.marolles-rando.fr/
http://www.thelostislands.com/
http://www.scouteo.fr/
http://egypte.gandi-site.net/
http://palermo.gandi-site.net/

We are pleased to release 3 new improvements this week, .DE domains for everyone, launch of .RU and live service status directly from Gandi's homepage:

.DE domains for everyone

We are now able to offer the German extension to everyone! This is done by setting a local German contact (trustee) as one of your domain contacts when you purchase a .DE domain. The local contact (a German lawyer) will automatically become the administrative contact at the registry on your behalf, though you will of course still own the domain name, and have administrative rights through Gandi.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new feature that you've been eagerly anticipating for some time now : the ability to increase the size of your disks!

You will need to perform two steps to do this:

1. Change the volume of your disk,
2. Run the necessary update on the file system itself.

This operation is totally automated for servers running under Gandi AI,  though it's only possible to do this on data disks for the moment.

After the Sunrise and Landrush phases (underway until March 23rd), .TEL domains will finally be available to everyone as of March 24th.

Online pre-reservation for this final phase is available at Gandi. Registration will be made on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration requests that failed will be fully refunded. The price for a .TEL domain has been set at 14 euros per year excl. VAT under A rates.

So here we are, proud parents of the Gandi hosting infrastructure. Our little baby has now been live (or alive) for 4 months now since the full launch on 1st Oct. Like any new parent everything is possible for our hosting baby, and the future is really exciting. But also like any new parent, there is lots to learn and always things to be done.

No, we're not referring to healing the blind, although with our new online website creation tool, Gandi SiteMaker, you are indeed able to work with accessibility features to help the visually impaired...

It has been some time since we have last brought you up to speed with all the latest developments here at Gandi, and if this is the case, it is because we have been hard at work for you! New hosting features, payment options, mail upgrades, blog improvements, we have a list of new services that will, I hope, have made the wait worthwhile!

Ah a good question. Who is this strange and wonderful French domain registrar and hosting provider, and why should I believe they are wonderful? What does it mean to believe in domain name ethics? Well to understand Gandi you have to go back to the very beginning...

We've made it!

For some it has been a four year labour of love, for others, less. In any case, an important step has just been taken by the team, of whom I am ever more proud: our Cloud Infrastructure is now operational. Yes, we are pleased to announce the grand opening of our Gandi Hosting service!

This wild dream is fuelled behind the scenes by the desire of a team to create something truly different, that will provide a unique combination of flexibility and transparency - two crucial elements often missing in the market. The desire to see people only consume what they really need, to provide them with the ability to migrate their resources from one location to another when needed, to move about freely...in short, everything that we dreamt about as customers ourselves.

The entire industry, all the players in this market, know very well that this technology will replace shared hosting, and possibly even dedicated hosting. The advantages for customers are too great to be ignored, which is why the traditional players, having down played this new type of hosting, are using buzzwords around virtualization in order to continue to sell to customers who are insufficiently informed.

It is our mission: to explain, again and again, why everyone needs flexible and dedicated resources, and those that accept this are turning to these solutions. Today we are talking about web hosting, but the infrastructure is really based on and can be used for "Cloud Computing". In other words, the rental of 'super computer' processing power which can be accessed from anywhere in the world for needs as diverse as 3D rendering, gigantic databases, etc...

To get back to hosting, our choice has been to offer a product with the following components:

- a technology that allows a degree of flexibility and security that is unrivalled among current web hosts/discounters,

- a price that is within reach of the largest number of people, maintaining one of the the core values of Gandi,

- a service that is worthy of being called such, or even more! Our mission is to serve you individually as best we possibly can, not to create an enormous mass of faceless customers.

I sincerely believe that, every day that has gone by and is yet to come, every effort is being made to meet our objectives, whether they are technical or personal.

Of course, the miracle solution, the one with the biggest pipes, the most massive machines etc.. that many players in the market are bragging about, does not exist. No technology will ever be flawless and we would not be providing you with an honest service if we made that claim.

But we do believe that:

Our role as a partner in your online presence (which is far more than simply hosting of your website), includes knowing that we need to help you see that you must use common sense in all situations, for example, the prominent mention in our hosting contract of the necessity to perform regular backups of your data.

We have months, or even years ahead of us to adapt our service to meet your needs, to perfect it so that it increasingly becomes one that cannot be ignored.

We are asking for the thing that is most important in our eyes, your confidence, to show you the way to go, not to hide from you all that we are doing, and to ensure that the service is as good as it can be. In our mind, this is achieved by proving the quality of our products to you.

When you entrust your online presence with us, we must be responsive if things go wrong (and this, even if I obviously do not want it to occur, does happen), be transparent with regards to what is taking place, and to do everything in our power to fix it, and of course to back this up with a commercial gesture.

All of this is clearly mentioned in our contract with you.

I do not know what you, our customers, will do with this service. Judging from the thousands of you that have joined us, even before the grand opening, it has already been a huge success, and one that all of us here wish to continue!

Despite the length of this entry, please allow me to warmly thank all the beta testers that have been with us these last nine months, without whom we would not have been able to make the right choices. I hope that by keeping the current rates for a few more months, and that the various rate schemes will encourage you to stay with us. As a side note, our American customers find that our offer is quite inexpensive for this type of service, compared to other offers of the same type.

As a conclusion, I just wanted, before totally delivering this service, to say to my team that they did a simply fabulous job, and that this can never be taken away from them. Simply put, we have suffered, but this is one of those things that can be remembered for ever with pride.Thanks to all that have contributed to this project!.

If I have been smiling in recent weeks - while I should have been more "stressed" due to the accumulated "delays" - it has been for this very reason: we are doing something long-term, and I am very proud of this, given all that we have achieved.

PS: The hardest part is just beginning, hang in there!

Stephan