Why BT is unbelievably Net stupid

What's the first thing you do when you rename your business?

By Kieren McCarthy • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 11th May 2001 15:53 GMT

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It would hardly have escaped your notice but BT has restructured itself again by splitting in two. All the mobile companies will be demerged as BT Wireless and everything else will be rebranded Future BT.

Now here's the question: If a huge part of your business is going to be Internet related, what do you do when you rename your company?

Why, you register the relevant domain names of course. And BT, being as Net-savvy as it is has done precisely this.

Oh, hang on, now it hasn't. In fact, it has fundamentally failed to register either futurebt.com or btfuture.com. The first is owned by Yun Jong Chel (registered 21 May last year) and has nothing on it. The second is owned by the ProProject (registered 21 April last year) and is a site for low-grade financial services.

But it gets even better than this. The ccTLD version of FutureBT and BTFuture have also been taken. Andrew Try has futurebt.co.uk and Ms Julie T Brown has btfuture.co.uk.

And when did both of them register the domain? On the 10 May 2001. So that'll be yesterday then. You know, when the telecoms giant actually announced its massive restructuring plan to the public.

Do you despair? Because we do. ®