VERISIGN EXPANDS GLOBAL NETWORK OF TRUSTED SERVICE PROVIDERS
RSA DATA SECURITY CONFERENCE '99, SAN JOSE, CALIF., JANUARY 18, 1999—VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the world's leading provider of Internet-based trust services, today announced the expansion of its global Affiliate network to include Roccade Megaplex in The Netherlands (also covering Belgium and Luxembourg) and Comparex Holdings in Germany (see related releases dated January 18,1999). These leading e-commerce service providers add to the strength of VeriSign's existing Affiliates covering Britain (British Telecom), France (Certplus), Japan (VeriSign Japan), South Africa (Persetel), Taiwan (HiTrust) and the U.S. (AT&T). Announced in conjunction with the launch of VeriSign's Affiliate Services (see release "VeriSign Announces Affiliate Services to Enable Global Network of Service Providers" dated January 18, 1999), the addition of Comparex and Roccade leverage VeriSign's trusted infrastructure in delivering digital certificate solutions to businesses and individuals wishing to engage in secure and private e-commerce and communications.
"International markets rely on rigorous personal identification procedures and business and government credentials to conduct trusted commerce and communications. They demand a commercial-grade, sophisticated security infrastructure to distribute and manage electronic credentials—digital certificates for the Internet," said Richard Yanowitch, vice president of marketing for VeriSign. " As partners in VeriSign's global Affiliate network, service providers throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas can now offer their customers industrial-strength trust services for e-commerce, communications and business applications 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
As businesses and individuals continue to leverage IP-based networks—including intranets, extranets, virtual private networks and the Internet—for advanced business-to-business and business-to-consumer interactions, the need to deliver a worldwide trusted infrastructure has emerged. Digital certificates provide the technological foundation of trust for electronic commerce and communications—verifying the identity, authority and privileges of individuals or entities before allowing them to access confidential information or transact new business. According to London-based research firm Datamonitor, digital certificates will be used in 40% of international corporations by 2000, up from 3% in 1998. By the year 2000, it is estimated that corporations will spend approximately $652 million on the technology, compared with $115 million today.
VeriSign Affiliates are a global network of e-commerce providers, delivering digital certificate services under a common trusted infrastructure. Affiliates provide their customers with localized services including customer service, systems integration and liability warranties in their own language, currency and legal system. Additionally, by conducting business in-country, an Affiliate's customers are assured of the highest level of reliability, scalability and authentication assurance. Affiliate customers also have the confidence that leading standards such as SSL for secure Web sites, S/MIME for secure messaging, and IPSec for virtual private networking will be delivered in accordance with the current local regulatory practices and e-commerce standards. Affiliates may provide their customers with digital certificates issued under a private trust domain or linked to the VeriSign Trust Network (VTN), the world's largest network of globally-interoperable digital certificates used by individuals and businesses to conduct secure electronic transactions and communications. The VTN establishes a common set of technology, infrastructure, and practices—key elements in establishing a common foundation of trust across communities, companies, industries and international boundaries.
Services Tailored for Global Affiliates
VeriSign's Affiliate Services are based on the company's proven and scalable WorldTrust technology architecture which, along with comprehensive operational support, trust practices and marketing services, facilitate an Affiliate's initial deployment and ongoing delivery of digital certificate solutions to its customers. To deliver digital certificate services, an Affiliate can adopt either the VeriSign Service Center or VeriSign Processing Center, allowing for a range of service delivery options based on an Affiliate's requirements.
The VeriSign Service Center provides an Affiliate with all of the front-end capabilities needed to perform subscriber enrollment and authentication, digital certificate issuance, directory hosting, customer support, billing integration and report generation from within their facilities while leveraging VeriSign's carrier-class digital certificate processing services and established public key infrastructure (PKI) backbone. This enables an Affiliate to rapidly deploy its own fully functional, scalable and reliable digital certificate service without the time and cost of establishing and maintaining dedicated systems, highly-secure facilities and expert personnel. Every Service Center implementation is linked to one of VeriSign's high availability data centers for certificate processing, database back-up, key recovery and customer support. Each data center is equipped with state-of-the-art physical and network security, fault tolerant computing and telecommunications systems, and redundant power systems. The VeriSign Service Center allows an Affiliate to integrate digital certificate services with its core business, allowing its customers, in turn, to leverage the world's most advanced trust infrastructure through a single, familiar business relationship.
The VeriSign Processing Center includes all of the functionality and benefits of the VeriSign Service Center and, in addition, enables an Affiliate to leverage its existing IT operations and infrastructure to establish its own PKI data center—including certificate transaction processing, security and operations management—to deliver the full complement of digital certificate lifecycle services "in-country." A Processing Center includes VeriSign's PKI platform, installation, training and regular updates to ensure smooth technology transfer, a common physical infrastructure, and global operational and trust practices. An Affiliate deploying a Processing Center generates and stores all of its CA roots in-country, meeting the needs of Affiliates operating within specific geopolitical requirements.
To assist in the rapid and smooth deployment of digital certificate services, VeriSign also provides each VeriSign Affiliate with an appropriate set of business readiness services. These readiness services include Service or Processing Center installation and integration services, facility and network design consulting, technical and customer support documentation and training, sales and marketing support, operating practice templates and local market customization.
VeriSign Affiliate Services
VeriSign's Affiliate Services have been designed to serve the needs of major service providers with extremely high volume digital certificate issuance requirements. These include electronic commerce service providers who establish themselves as large-scale regional or multi-national Certificate Authorities (CAs); Internet Service Providers or Web hosting companies which deliver connectivity and other value added services to a range of business and consumer customers; and transaction processors, financial services companies, professional services firms, and other entities that operate Internet-based communities of interest (such as Web portals). These Affiliates typically offer digital certificate services to their customers either under their own brand, the VeriSign brand, or within a co-branded certificate hierarchy. In many cases, the certificate services are integrated with other value-added services offered by the provider. Examples include an ISP which offers Web site digital certificates in conjunction with its Web site hosting services or a large e-commerce site which offers certificates to each member of its customer base to support secure user authentication and electronic messaging.
VeriSign, Inc.
VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN) is the leading provider of Internet-based trust services and digital certificate solutions needed by Web sites, enterprises, electronic commerce service providers and individuals to conduct trusted and secure electronic commerce and communications over IP networks. VeriSign's digital certificate services for Web sites and consumers are available through the company's Web site at www.verisign.com. The company's digital certificate services for enterprises and electronic commerce service providers are available through regional account representatives, resellers and VeriSign Affiliates worldwide.
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