The erstwhile parent for GeoTrust’s operations in those geographies was Japan’s GMO Internet, which is launching a competing offering to the entire VeriSign stable (VeriSign, GeoTrust, and Thawte) under the GlobalSign brand, the result of its late 2006 acquisition of a Belgian certificate authority of the same name.
It issues SSL certificates, with its root code embedded in all the leading OSes and browsers, as well as participating in the code signing and digital ID markets, though clearly SSL is where the major market opportunity lies.
Steve Waite, formerly marketing director for GeoTrust in Europe and now holding the same post for EMEA and the US at GlobalSign, said the privately held Belgian CA was primarily a player in the enterprise segment of the digital certificate market, which accounts for about 40% of the overall space. It was also active only in Europe, with most of its customers in Belgium and the UK.
Under GMO, however, its remit has been expanded to the rest of the world, as well as the other two major segments of the market: reseller, which makes up about 30% of the global market, and retail/transactional, where someone acquires a single certificate, which makes up a further 30%.
The trick to building the reseller channel, which in the digital certificate context means ISPs, web hosting companies, and independent web consultants, is that GMO has picked up most of the former management of GeoTrust outside the US, so at least in Europe and APAC it should be able to make a stab at enticing partners across to the GlobalSign brand with lower pricing and, presumably, better margins for them. The US, on the other hand, will be virgin territory, so the company will have its work cut out gaining visibility.
Waite said a single GlobalSign SSL certificate can be acquired in the transactional market for $189 in the US and 142 euros in Europe. This is typically between 25% and 30% of the price of a VeriSign certificate, he said, and even GeoTrust has put its prices up now that it belongs to VeriSign, with its cheapest certificate in the US at $249.
Our View
With VeriSign controlling 70% of the market through its various brands, anyone seeking to mount a challenge in digital certificates has its work cut out, and reliance on pricing is going to have to be a major part of its strategy. On the other hand, the argument that everything will be GlobalSign-branded, whereas with VeriSign there are a variety of brands to deal with, may carry less weight, depending on how VeriSign manages all the names it now has in its stable. The North American market, where GlobalSign has zero brand recognition, is going to be more of an uphill battle.
GlobalSign certainly isn’t the only company looking to grab market share through lower prices, so the story in digital certificates is really how soon price erosion can begin in earnest, even as GeoTrust puts its prices up.
