Tucows retires seminal Tucows Downloads site
JANUARY 25, 2021, TORONTO — Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX, TSX: TC) today announced it has retired the software downloads site that started it all. TUCOWS, which then stood for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software, started on a library computer in Flint, MI in 1993. 28 years later, it served up its last software download.
What started as a place for people in the know to download software became the place to download software on the burgeoning Internet. The TUCOWS software library (rebadged Tucows Downloads in the 2000s) was “mirrored” by Internet Service Providers worldwide. Its importance in the early distribution of Internet software and in the history of the Internet itself cannot be overstated.
Much of the software that made up the Tucows Downloads library has been transferred to the Internet Archive, for posterity (https://archive.org/details/tucows). The Internet Archive is a cause whose good work Tucows actively supports.
The TUCOWS homepage, circa 1998 via the Internet Archive
As Tucows has evolved as a business and as software downloading itself has changed, the software library that started it all has become much less relevant.
“For the past several years, history, well sentimentality, has been the only reason to keep Tucows Downloads around,” said Elliot Noss, CEO of Tucows. “Tucows Downloads has had an incredible run. Retiring it is the right move but that doesn’t alter the fact that it will always hold a special place in hearts and our story.
“We’re thankful to the thousands of software developers who used Tucows Downloads to get their software in front of millions of people, driving billions of downloads over more than 25 years.”
Tucows today
From humble beginnings, today Tucows is the second-largest domain name registrar and the largest wholesaler of domain names in the world with tens of millions of domains under management. The SaaS OpenSRS domain wholesale platform serves tens of thousands of customers including Shopify and other global website builder platforms.
Hover offers domain names and email at retail to help people brand their life online.
Ting Internet is building fiber-optic networks all over the U.S. At the same time, Tucows is building the Mobile Services Enabler (MSE) SaaS platform that is powering DISH’s entry into the U.S. mobile market.
Tucows continues to grow and is hiring remote positions across the board. To see available career opportunities, please visit tucows.com/careers
To read the full letter from CEO Elliot Noss, please visit tucows.com/retired.
About Tucows
Tucows is a provider of network access, mobile technology services, domain names and other Internet services. Ting Internet delivers fixed fiber Internet access with outstanding customer support. Tucows’ mobile services enabler (MSE) platform provides network access, provisioning and billing services for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). OpenSRS, Enom and Ascio combined manage approximately 25 million domain names and millions of value-added services through a global reseller network of over 36,000 web hosts and ISPs. Hover makes it easy for individuals and small businesses to manage their domain names and email addresses. More information can be found on Tucows’ corporate website.
|
Media contact: |
Welcoming Jill Szuchmacher, seasoned fiber-to-the-home exec, to Ting Internet
I am extremely excited to welcome Jill Szuchmacher to the Tucows executive team. I have known Jill for many years and have always found her to be a fellow traveler on the journey towards the future of Internet networks. We share a vision of not just the business of fiber networks, but the role they play in society more broadly.
Jill was most recently Vice President of Operations at Google Fiber. There she led strategy, planning, training and analytics for build and field operations. As CSO and EVP Networks for Ting Internet, she will be responsible for our construction builds, our pipeline of new Ting towns and for helping me plot the course for the coax to fiber transition that will change the broadband landscape over the next decade.
Former Google Fiber VP Jill Szuchmacher joins Ting Internet as Chief Strategy Officer and EVP Networks
November 30, 2020, TORONTO — Ting Internet, a top-rated fiber-optic Internet Service Provider (ISP) and division of Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX, TSX: TC), is proud to welcome Jill Szuchmacher and her proven Internet leadership to the team as Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice-President Networks for Ting Internet.
Szuchmacher joins Ting Internet after executing in high-profile roles, most recently as Vice President of Operations at Google Fiber, where she led strategy, planning, training and analytics for build and field operations. As CSO and EVP Networks for Ting Internet, she will lead a world-class team to drive the Ting Internet business forward.
“This is a key leadership role for Ting Internet and for Tucows,” said Elliot Noss, CEO of Tucows. “The need for fast, reliable Internet access has never been more apparent. 2020 squeezed years of latent change into months. Rapid adoption is a trend we see continuing as people and businesses rely more and more on the Internet to connect. Jill Szuchmacher is precisely the leader we need to ramp and scale Ting Internet to meet these opportunities and navigate the multi-generational transition from coax and copper to fiber.”
