Re: [cobalt-users] Bad News For Secure Certificates

[Dennis <dkc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In followup look at the graph at the thawte.com site. Thawte holds a 41% market
share and Verisign has about 58% market share.

Also looking at it from Versign its one good business move. Hate to see the price of
Thawte's certs to rise.

Dennis wrote:

> Is this legal in the U.S.? The government is putting Microsoft on trail for
> anti-trust infringement... while this is about as monopolistic as I have seen. I
> know Thawte was a foreign company, but who else would you go to to get certs?
>
> Dan wrote:
>
> > Now, how will we get "wildcard" SSL certificates?
> >
> > This just in:
> >
> > December 20, 1999 07:30 AM
> > MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- VeriSign, Inc. VRSN , the
> > leading provider of Internet trust services, today announced that it has
> > acquired privately held Thawte Consulting of South Africa, the world's
> > second largest provider of digital certificates to websites and software
> > developers. The acquisition further extends VeriSign's leadership in
> > delivering the trust infrastructure needed by businesses, individuals and
> > software developers to secure a wide range of online communications and
> > transactions over the Internet.
> > "Establishing a consistent, globally-interoperable trust infrastructure for
> > the Internet has been our mission since day one," said Stratton Scalvos,
> > president and CEO of VeriSign. "The combination of VeriSign and Thawte's
> > customer bases, widely-deployed digital certificate root keys and
> > highly-skilled engineering and customer-service organizations will enable us
> > to provide unparalleled trust services to websites, developers, ISPs and
> > other constituencies across the Internet."
> >
> > The stock VeriSign will issue in this transaction will have an aggregate
> > market value of $575 million. The exact number of shares will be determined
> > based on the trading price of VeriSign common stock prior to the closing
> > date. The acquisition will be accounted for as a purchase transaction. The
> > transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including the need to
> > obtain certain regulatory approvals in South Africa and other customary
> > conditions.
> >
> > As a combined entity, VeriSign and Thawte will be able to implement a
> > consistent set of global standards for the issuance and management of
> > digital certificates for websites and software developers. VeriSign
> > currently serves all of the Top 40 e-commerce sites and Fortune 500
> > companies with a web presence, and thousands of other sites with its range
> > of Secure Site, Global Site and Code-Signing and certificate services.
> > Thawte has built a strong franchise through a widely distributed agent
> > network in over 22 countries around the world. Together, the companies have
> > over 3300 ISPs, ASPs and Web Hosting companies acting as resellers of their
> > services. They are also the only two digital certificate providers with
> > commercial availability of 128-bit website certificates, which enable highly
> > strong encryption in both domestic and export versions of Microsoft and
> > Netscape browsers.
> >
> > "We are thrilled to join forces with VeriSign to enable a worldwide
> > foundation for e-commerce," said Mark Shuttleworth, president and CEO of
> > Thawte Consulting. "By combining our respective operations, teams and
> > customer bases, we will be able to serve a broader set of customers under on
> > common set of trust principles across the Internet."
> >
> > --
> > Dan Kriwitsky
> > 
> >
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