Tucows Selects IBM Canada to Host Its Domain Registration Services and Software Download Site

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February 5, 2002

MARKHAM, ON. (February 5, 2002)… IBM Canada Ltd. announced today that Toronto-based Tucows Inc. (OTCBB: TCOW), a leading distributor of e-business services and applications on the Internet, has chosen IBM to host its entire suite of Internet service offerings. Under the agreement, IBM will host Tucows’ domain registration services and its worldwide software download site.

IBM will oversee the hosting of OpenSRS, Tucows’ domain registration hub that handles an average of 3.5 million domain requests a day from a network of more than 5,000 partners in over 100 countries. IBM will also host Tucows’ software libraries. The Tucows site features more than 30,000 software titles and generates more than 2.5 million page views per day. Tucows is consistently faced with a large volume of traffic and downloads. A robust network infrastructure was a mandatory requirement and something that IBM readily supplied.

“Tucows was the fastest growing registrar in top-level domain registrations in 2001,” said Paul Lovell, General Manager, e-business hosting services, IBM Canada Ltd. “It is a Web-sophisticated company for which a superior network solution was a necessity. The marriage of IBM’s industrial strength hosting expertise and Tucows’ e-business savvy ensures users they’ll continue to get the very best service.”

“For a network-centric company like ours, whose reputation was built online, it’s critical that our high service levels be upheld. IBM was tremendously responsive to our needs and facilitated moving our entire network in a very short period of time,” commented Supriyo Sen, Chief Technology Officer at Tucows.

IBM provides floor space, network bandwidth and support to Tucows. “The total transition took place in a 12-hour period and was completed with less than five hours of downtime for our primary OpenSRS systems. IBM was able to demonstrate their expertise, flexibility and dependability under extremely challenging conditions,” added Sen.

This new agreement builds on a relationship already in place between IBM and Tucows in the U.S. IBM currently hosts the .INFO registry operations run by LibertyRMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tucows.

About IBM

IBM Global Services is the world’s largest information technology services provider, with approximately 150,000 professionals serving customers in 160 countries and annual revenue of about US$35 billion (2001). IBM Global Services integrates IBM’s broad range of capabilities ?? services, hardware, software and research — to help companies of all sizes realize the full value of information technology. For more information, visit: http://www.ibm.com/services.

About Tucows

Tucows Inc. is a leading provider of wholesale digital products and distributor of e-business services and applications on the Internet. An ICANN-accredited registrar, Tucows provides wholesale domain name registrations for generic and country code top?level domains (TLDs), plus web certificates. Liberty Registry Management Services Inc. (LibertyRMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Tucows, provides global registry management services for top-level domain name registries including .INFO. Tucows also distributes software and other digital content through its integrated network of resellers. Tucows offers more than 30,000 software titles in libraries located around the world and operates search and reference media sites including Electric Library, Encyclopedia.com, and NewsDirectory.com. For more information, please visit: https://www.tucows.com.