If Germany has .DE and France has .FR and the UK has .CO.UK

Then who really cares about .EU?

[Webwork]

Will a company wish to be tied to .EU or to .Com if it started under .Com or .Fr?

Why would a company jump from its existing ccTLD or .Com? What would motivate such a move?

Will .EU simply be a redirect to an existing website URL for existing brands? (IF they're a brand they've already had a website for a decade. Do they want to reprint all their promotional materials, supplies, etc.?)

Ya, it was pretty exciting there for awhile: Get your .EU whilst it lasted, but now that the speculative registration frenzy has abated - is anyone asking themselves "what now"?

[Live_Lead]

Maybe not if it allready exists, but if it's a new european company (Societas Europeae) that incorporates directly under european company statute it might do.

[John Carpenter]

I can imagine that the .eu TLD makes sense for example for official institutions, commission, and bureaus of the EU (and there are hundreds of them). These should no longer use the .int domain.

The EU might eventually become a single federal country like the US (although this will probably require many many years).

[Webwork]

Great example John. I'm having trouble thinking of other natural fits or other logical moves.

I can see a "new company" taking on a .EU domain, but unless your company is a pan-European company - having offices spread across the European Unition - .EU just doesn't seem a natural fit. It still seems to me that the existing ccTLD would come first or second to .Com - unless the company didn't care to have a global reach (.Com's reach is worldwide, although it's largest first moves can in the U.S.)

Where else does .EU fit better than any other TLD? Why so?

[Live_Lead]

sport (european games, football etc)
entertainment eurovision song contest etc
.eu search engines
lottery

[OptiRex]

Why would a company jump from its existing ccTLD or .Com? What would motivate such a move?

Interestingly I have been diversifying my sites away from the .com over the past couple of years with the advent of .cn and .in but trying to get some ccTLD's is a nightmare.

The reason?

So that an interested widget purchaser rightly perceives he is dealing direct with the actual source of the supply and not through a worldwide routing office of two desks in whichever country!

However how does this affect .eu?

My customers need to know direct answers from the raw widget source therefore .eu is not only a very good contact point from which to disseminate that information but also a good point for enquirers who, don't ask me why about this, actually prefer to write/speak with someone in a language they know they can understand!

Trust me, I am regularly asked if my Indian and Chinese offices speak English!

The .com still holds all the main information, the .co.uk is focused on the UK, the .eu is going to be very important for me since the Net has changed considerably over the past 14+ years of our .com site and it's going to allow me to diversify into other realms of my widget trade which would have been a lot more strenuous incorporation under the .com:-)

It's a pity it's taken so long to happen.