The expected announcement from the US Postal Service means that anybody in the US can now register and purchase online postage from the two companies authorized to offer the services. E-Stamp Inc and Stamps.com Inc are the only two companies to so far receive approval for a nationwide service, but Pitney Bowes Inc and NeoPost are still testing and are in the process of getting approval. Cylink Corp has supplied the underlying public-key infrastructure technology, which aims to insure that validates each party in the transaction, after a test period of one year.
E-Stamp employs a software-hardware hybrid and publicly traded Stamps.com is a pure web play. The former sells its software and hardware for $50 and charges a 10% fee to buy the postage value, while the latter enables users to download the software for free and charges the same percentage fee when the postage is used. Cylink plans to offer its first commercial PKI product offering next month.
