Looking to spread its wings in the competitive domain name market, Idealab-owned registry New.net on Thursday announced the acquisition of software firm Basic Fusion from KwikWeb.com, Inc. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

New.net, which is headquartered in Sherman Oaks, Calif., said Basic Fusion would retain its name and operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary.

Under terms of the deal, New.net purchased Basic Fusion's registry software, intellectual property and related assets associated with the operation of the registry business.

The acquisition comes as New.net launches its EPP registry platform, which was built by Basic Fusion. The XML-based EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol) platform is touted as a state-of-the-art software service for companies operating in the domain name space.

Basic Fusion markets its registry software to operators of generic and country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) on an ASP basis. The software lets top level domain managers to retain full control over the operation of their TLD within the ASP-style registry system.

The deal gives New.net a point of entry into the registry services market, which is dominated by bigger players like Verisign and Silicon Alley's Register.com.

"The acquisition positions New.net as a leading player in the domain name services space. In addition to serving as a powerful complement to our core business as a domain name registry, (it helps) us to tap into entirely new markets as a registry services provider, New.net CEO David Hernand said in a statement.

New.net entered the domain name space with a bang in March 2001 when it launched ambitious plans to market alternative domain name extensions to the existing .COM, .NET and .ORG top level suffixes.

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The company has scored deals with ISPs around the world to allow access to New.net domain names through network upgrades. The company also distributes a software application to allow access for Web users without the upgraded networks.