The OpenSRS booth at HostingCon 2008 before the exhibit hall's opening.

On the right side of the booth is a makeshift counter, staffed by a tuxedo man with a moustache who is serving up a classic summer treat of root beer and cherry cola floats.

All of this may sound like just another clever trade show gimmick intended to lure potential customers, because after all, when was the last time you said no to free ice-cream? 

But after reading the caption 'Reseller Friendly Since 1999', which appears within the OpenSRS (opensrs.com) logo, it all starts to make a little sense.

Internet services provider Tucows (tucowsinc.com) announced this week it is returning to its OpenSRS name for its wholly-owned wholesale reseller services group.

The company's reseller-centric mandate prides itself on the core values of service, friendliness, willingness to help, community service and reliability.

"It really showed our roots, the [OpenSRS] name associated with the fact that we have been around so long, and we've seen really great innovations since then," says Ken Schafer, vice president of product management and marketing for Tucows. "We've been very focused on being reseller-friendly for years now."
 
In 1999, Tucows became the first domain name wholesaler to be accredited by ICANN and selected the name OpenSRS for its domain name service.

Through its global network of over 9,000 service providers, the OpenSRS group provides millions of email boxes and manages over eight million domains.

OpenSRS provides wholesale services for hosted email which includes POP, IMAP, WAP and webmail access, domain name registration, Personal Names where users can select from several phrase or word combinations, and SSL certificates.

One of the main reasons why OpenSRS decided to relaunch the brand was resellers' sustained loyalty to OpenSRS, which the company says can be attributed to its reseller-friendly reputation among Internet services wholesalers.  

The past nine years has seen OpenSRS' consistent growth each year, with over 9,000 active resellers on six continents. Meanwhile, 78 percent of these resellers who joined in 1999 are still using OpenSRS to sell services today, says Schafer.

The company was adamant about establishing new brand marks and a logo that would represent a throwback to the 1950s - a time when a business' main focus was in providing quality service.

"If you remember in Back to the Future, [Marty McFly] was amazed at how great the service he is getting, because it is such an atypical thing now," says Schafer. "That's really what we wanted to embody. I think it was very important to get reseller commitment right into the logo."
 
The company has a domain name portfolio of approximately 150,000 domain names that are available for sale, monetized through advertising and support its wholesale Personal Names Service.

On its retail division end, OpenSRS sells Tucows services to consumers and small business owners through Domain Direct, It's Your Domain and NetIdentity.
 
The company is also considerably involved standing up for registrant rights within the registrar community as well as making things simple and reliable for its resellers.

Schafer says the company differentiates itself through a commitment to its identity as a wholesale business, rather than many of its competitors that often compete with their own resellers for customers. 

"A lot of our competitors these days are losing focus on the reseller channel," says Schafer. "They're really getting more involved in retail, or they're branching off onto different things. I think resellers look for something that's customized to their needs -- it's not the typical thing where they go to buy just a domain."