Damn....lucky ass!
I can confirm Apple has bought IPhone.com from Michael Kovatch. Michael would not disclose the sale prices but he said it was well worth it to sell. I know this was at least a million dollar sale. Michael said this last week was a very busy one inside of Apple. He was holding out because he truly wanted to use the domain. Michael had his business partner (and lawyer) handled the negotiation. He considered not selling at the very end, he had registered the domain back in 1995 and was building a company on the domain. The Traffic on the domain had begun to skyrocket in the last 6 months and it showed good signs of potential. Michael settled for a huge check instead of trying to realizing the potential of the domain. It turned out that domain was so valuable that Apple just had to own it. I pointed a few days ago that 4,000 IPhone domains have been bought this year and that another 4,000 will be bought before the year is done. It is extremely critical that Apple own the domain. The headaches would have just compounded had they not owned the domain. I advise clients to own the domain BEFORE they announce a new brand. Apple spend far more money buying the domain 6 months after the announcement. Michael had to turn on Proxy Whois because he was receiving so many phone calls. After the proxy whois was turned on it helped shield 99.9% of the phone calls.
Upon closing the deal, Michael changed the name servers over to Apple.com and now Apple controls the DNS. The domain is still in Michael’s account under Domains by Proxy but Apple plans to transfer the domain in the next week. We used our Historic Whois records to go back in time and get Michael’s home phone number.
I asked him what other domains he owned and he said he had some good ones. Soccer Shop.com, Wine.net, Golf.net, Noc.net, Wine Online.com, Kovo.com, Tee Shirt.com, and Cyber Wine.com. Michael started an ISP in 1993 and was in the right place at the right time. He knew the Internet would allow telephone calls one day and that is why he registered IPhone.com. Little did he know the 12 years later the Internet would be one his cell phones and Apple would reveal a product with his name and all this would make him an instant Millionaire.
His seven digit sale goes down in History as one of the biggest sales for a domain name.
Upon closing the deal, Michael changed the name servers over to Apple.com and now Apple controls the DNS. The domain is still in Michael’s account under Domains by Proxy but Apple plans to transfer the domain in the next week. We used our Historic Whois records to go back in time and get Michael’s home phone number.
His seven digit sale goes down in History as one of the biggest sales for a domain name.
