Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : CustomTracks Corporation (CUST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sargent who wrote (710)	6/9/1999 10:31:00 PM
From: Tom Hua	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2514

sargent, she got the location wrong, but the rest of the story sounds pretty accurate, such as: But CustomTracks, which has no products on the market at this point and has switched business plans several times in recent months, faces challenges in taking on the likes of Verisign, the industry leader. And analysts aren't impressed with the logic behind Joseph Charles's bold prediction that CustomTracks' stock could hit a price target of $230 a share. Several analysts who follow e-commerce security companies, and the managers of several investment funds with holdings in the industry view the likelihood of CustomTracks' success as a long shot. CustomTracks "has never appeared on the radar screen and all I do is follow information security," says Paul Saunders, an analyst with SoundView Technology Group, a research firm based in Stanford, Conn. "The likelihood of [CustomTracks] being a major player and replicating what Verisign has done is very, very small," he says. Analysts say that Verisign has already made a significant impact in the e-commerce field. The top 40 e-commerce sites are Verisign customers, as are more than 400 of the largest companies that are on the Internet, says John Puricelli, an analyst at A.G. Edwards in St. Louis. "It took Verisign four years of diligent effort to get to this point. They spent over $75 million on their computer room alone," he says. "Verisign issues [digital] certificates and then supports them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ... It's not an easy thing to get into." Analysts say the vast majority of browsers today are compatible with Verisign's digital certificates, and they say newcomers to the security business will have a hard time usurping Verisign's relationships with browser developers. "Even if [CustomTracks] were able to get into the browsers, there are millions of computers out there that already have the older authorities in them," says David Zale, an analyst at Sand Brothers in New York. CustomTracks also "would have to initiate relationships [with merchants] so they could have their certificates imbedded," he says. For his part, Stratton Sclavos, the chief executive of Verisign, doesn't feel threatened. "It's highly unlikely that something can come out of the blue with an unproven technology and infrastructure and with no brand recognition" to challenge Verisign, he says. Mr. Sclavos says he hadn't heard of CustomTracks until the Joseph Charles report was released. Mr. Weinstein says Joseph Charles wasn't paid by CustomTracks to disseminate the report, and that the firm has never owned shares of CustomTracks stock. He says he personally purchased CustomTracks shares when they were trading around 30. He declines to state the total value of the CustomTracks shares he owns.