All the details, including a news release and financial statements can be found in our Investors area. We’ll be hosting a live conference call beginning at 5:00 P.M. ET today (Wednesday, May. 7th, 2008). As usual, we’ll record the call and post an archived MP3 within a few hours.

Update: the MP3 recording of the Q1 2008 conference call has been posted.

Many of you know me as one of the original OpenSRS guys, but more recently, I’ve been involved in running Tucows retail services - Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain. As you may have already read, effective today, we are getting out of the hosting business. You can read the full press release in our Media Archive.

Why are we doing this and what does it have to do with you?

From a retail perspective, we believe that it is extremely important for us to be able to provide world-class quality for all of the services we offer. By examining the market, seeking feedback from our end users, and discussing our strengths and weaknesses internally, one thing became clear. In order to provide world-class quality for all of the services we offer, we must simplify our service offerings.

Many of our competitors attempt to provide a “one-stop internet services shopping experience”. We call this “the Walmart way”. We believe that we have a much higher chance at succeeding by doing very few things extremely well for our clients. You could call this “the boutique approach”. Our goal is to help our customers use their domain names and email addresses with the great services that other companies are already providing. In other words, rather than trying to compete with companies like Hostopia to offer better hosting services than they do, we are going to focus on making sure that our products work better with their great services than any other provider does.

Tucows Resellers also benefit from this increased focus. My retail team spends a lot of time with the OpenSRS and Tucows Email teams to ensure that they understand where their services are succeeding and failing from a reseller perspective. Being in the building provides us with a great opportunity to improve these services for the benefit of all Tucows resellers. With the benefit of our increased focus, we will also be able to invest more time working specifically on translating everything that we are learning about how to sell domain names and email in a competitive market into programs that Tucows resellers will be able to take advantage of. These programs could take the form of new code, new services and new marketing programs, depending on what works best in each case.

I’m very pleased with this development as I really believe it will be of tremendous benefit to all of Tucows customers - retail and resale. Of course, if you have any questions about the specifics of the transaction, please feel free to leave us a comment and either myself, or someone from the team will respond.

And of course, we will be notifying all affected customers about this change and how it will affect their hosting service - if at all. Many of our shared hosting clients are already hosted with Hostopia, so the changes should be minimal for the vast majority.

Drives incremental growth for Hostopia as Tucows focuses its retail operations on email and online identity

TORONTO — May 6, 2008 — Tucows Inc. (AMEX: TCX, TSX: TC) and Hostopia.com, Inc. (TSX: H) yesterday signed a definitive agreement for Hostopia to purchase certain of Tucows’ shared hosting customer assets including approximately 14,000 Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain.com (IYD) customer accounts.

The full text of the news release is available at our media site.

Tucows plans to report its first quarter fiscal 2008 financial results via news release on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at approximately 4:00 p.m. (ET). Company management will host a conference call the same day at 5:00 p.m. (ET) to discuss the results and the outlook for the company.

More details and the full news release can be found at our media site.

Elliot Noss, our President and CEO, will be one of the keynote speakers at ISPCON Spring 2008. ISPCON happens May 13th - 15th at Chicago’s Donald E. Stephen’s (Rosemont) Convention Centre.

On Wednesday, May 14th, at 10 A.M., Elliot will present, “Why YOU and lowfat lattes are Google’s Worst Nightmare.” Here’s the summary:

“Google has an Achille’s Heel. Ruthless efficiency is embedded in their DNA, which is good for machines but bad for human beings. In this keynote session, Elliot Noss, President and CEO of Tucows will talk about how Starbucks is a better role model than Google or how applying this approach can help make a difference in your business as you compete against the biggest fish in the pond.”

As usual, Tucows will exhibiting at ISPCON. In addition, Rohan Jayasekera, Director, Tucows Email Service, will be participating in a panel discussion. That session, “Who Should Be Running Your Email,” is scheduled for the Wednesday, May 14th, but check the ISPCON conference schedule for the official word on times and for information about the other sessions.

ISPCON is less than six weeks away. We’re gearing up for the show, and we’re looking forward to getting the chance to meet potential new, and current customers face-to-face. See you there.

We’re pleased to introduce Joey Olson, our new Technical Support Manager. Joey has been a part of Tucows’ wholesale support group since 2001 and brings a wealth of experience to his new role. To help you get to know Joey a bit better, we’ve put together a short video introduction:

If you have trouble with the embedded Quicktime version above, you can download it here, or try the Windows Media version instead.

With Easter sneaking up on us early this year, some of us here in Toronto will be off for the Good Friday holiday tomorrow.

The picture of the giant easter egg is courtesy of Kevin Saff. That would be the world’s largest Easter egg, by the way, and it’s located in Vegreville, Alberta, Canada.

But before we go off and enjoy way too many of the tasty chocolate variety eggs, here’s a list of departments along with any special holiday hours for Friday, March 21, 2008:

One of the best parts of my role here at Tucows is being able to bring talented people into the company.

I’m thrilled to announce that Rohan Jayasekera has joined my team as Director of the Tucows Email Service.

At the risk of sounding like a stalker, I’ve had my eye on Rohan since I first met him at a BarCamp event here in Toronto a few years ago. I was impressed by Rohan’s deep insights on the topic our little “unconference” group was talking about (although I can’t for the life of me remember what exactly we were discussing) and when I got home I did a quick Google on Rohan and found a peer with an incredibly interesting background.

Rather than gush about exact how great a fit Rohan is, I’ll just point you to his blog post about joining Tucows so you can hear it from the man.

This morning Tucows released some information about our domain portfolio. The highlights are:

• 150,000 domains in the portfolio as of Feburary 14th, 2008
• Over 1,000 “Gems,” or domain names Tucows considers to have the highest potential value in the portfolio
• 39,000 Surnames that form the basis of our Personal Names Service
• 22,000 Brandable Names and 88,000 Direct Navigation Names

You’ll find much more detail in the news release, including a select listing of some of those “Gem” domain names.

Thanks to the Provincial Government in Ontario, Canada, we’re celebrating the first ever Family Day this year. It’s a new holiday that falls on the third Monday of February and we’re all encouraged to spend time relaxing with family.

Here’s a list of departments along with any special holiday hours for Monday, February 18th, 2008: