Hnarakis, who unveiled the plans at the company's annual general meeting, told shareholders "We will shortly release a range of domain name monitoring services across each of our divisions.
"Among these are sophisticated services designed to assist domain name owners to protect their online brands and alert them to potential infringements".
The news came at a meeting in which Melbourne IT chairman Rob Stewart blamed the deregulation of the .au domain name space for its 2002 EBIT result of AU$2.4 million, down from AU $4.2 million in 2001. "Associated with [the deregulation] we experienced significantly higher costs because of the new registry fees imposed by [domain name administrator] auDA.
"On the revenue side, while in this new competitive environment, we are able to maintain our retail selling price, there was some erosion of our wholesale prices," Stewart said. "This also impacted on our EBIT for the year".
However, the company's after-tax result slid to a AU$5 million loss on the back of a write-down of its investment in the troubled NeuLevel joint venture, originally established to handle the .biz domain space. "Unfortunately, the takeup of .biz domain names was much slower than originally anticipated and therefore Neulevel did not live up to our projects," Stewart conceded. "The board therefore took the decision to write down the value of our investment from AU$7.9 million to AU$1.1 million".
He said the venture had been "extensively restructured" and was now on track to generate positive cash flows by the fourth quarter of this year".
Hnarakis also revealed that the company was investing in "a major upgrade" of its technical registration solutions throughout 2003 to support its wholesale division, which accounts for the lion's share of business with around AU$33 million in sales every year.
"This enhanced technology is adding functionality, improving our operational efficiencies and continuing to provide Melbourne IT with a competitive edge in the global market," the chief executive said.
He said the predominantly Australian-based retail division, which generates around $AU13 million each year in sales and services around 150,000 clients, had adapted "well" to the new regulatory environment with its significantly higher registry fees.
An "exciting" new development for the company was the launch of value-added services -- in partnership with companies such as LookSmart and WebCentral -- "to help counteract the higher registry costs". These included a suite of new entry-level Internet products which targeted the small-to-medium and home office market.
"Other services are being planned and will be launched during this year.
"We have an ongoing strategy of broadening the range of high-value services that we offer and will continually seek opportunities to increase the average value of each of our customers".
Hnarakis said Melbourne IT's newest division, Corporate Domain Management, had won business from 70 of Australia's top private and public sector organisations in less than 18 months of operation. These included the Australian Tourist Commission, Austrade, KPMG, Rio Tinto and St George Bank.
"Domain names are the online brands of the 21st century and as such, are a new and very valuable commercial asset.
"For example, one of our customers, NineMSN, receives 5.5 million unique visitors every month.
"Their need to secure and protect their valuable name is paramount..."
