Wrong.name.com
11 October 1999
Loss-making retailer Fronteer International Holdings, listed in Hong Kong, was known as Iwai's International Holdings until 25-Sep-98. Well, a whole year's gone by and they've heard of the internet. Time for another name change. Cyberspace: the final Fronteer.
The company has started selling clothes on line at instantstyle.com (complete with really cheesy music). Nothing wrong (or innovative) about that. Most companies manage to go online without changing their name, and those that do change their name tend to adopt their on-line name.
This company, however, has adopted "eBiz.hk.com", effective 27-Sep-98. Note the first dot. That means the name is in fact what techies call a "subdomain" of hk.com, which of course was registered long ago by another firm. The hk.com site holds an internet search engine focused on Hong Kong.
Domains are unique, and therefore the only people who can create the subdomain eBiz.hk.com are the people who now own hk.com, a company called HK.com Holdings Inc. We spoke to its Chairman, Mr. Maren Leizaola, who said that they had no connection whatsoever with eBiz.hk.com Ltd and had no intention of selling them the subdomain.
Separately, Mr. Leizaoala declined to comment on rumours that his firm will be launching a new subdomain service (for names like yourname.hk.com) in competition with the "real" (and sometimes uncommercial) registrar of Hong Kong, HKNIC, which registers domains of the type yourname.com.hk.
In fact, the company formally known as Fronteer (didn't they mean Frontier?) does own the domain eBizhk.com (no dot between the z and the h), although the site is currently "under construction" since it was registered on 18-Jul-99. Perhaps another corporate name change to remove the dot?
This move is symptomatic of the current internet craze in Hong Kong, where mediocre companies look to achieve fame and stardom just be renaming themselves and making a few internet investments. It is reminiscent of the 1993 wave of companies wanting to "China" their names after Morgan Stanley analyst Barton Biggs came back "maximum bullish" and started the China investment wave. And we all know how that ended.
© Webb-site.com, 1999
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