Press Release

GlobalSign Grows in 2007 Further Strengthening Position in SSL Certificate Market

Netcraft Secure Server Report Highlights a Growth Rate of Over 180%

London, UK – 17 January, 2008 – GlobalSign Ltd (www.globalsign.co.uk), one of the longest established Certification Authorities (CA) and specialists in SSL security, today announced that the company has achieved an impressive 180% growth rate* in 2007 for its SSL Certificate products - during a year that saw the re-vamp of its brand, the opening of new worldwide offices and the roll out of new products, solutions and systems.  Combined with the backing of its new parent company, GMO Internet Inc, GlobalSign is now well positioned and competing head-on with long-time market leading CA VeriSign.

During 2007, GlobalSign launched several new enterprise and reseller services following extensive customer feedback from the hosting community and enterprise markets. The reseller and enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) type solutions enables customers to quickly, simply and conveniently manage any of GlobalSign’s leading SSL Certificates through an online management interface / API.

Designed specifically for the hosting community, a new reseller system was launched to address the growing need for hosting companies and ISPs to offer featured packed SSL Certificates (with the strongest SGC security provided free of charge) at the best possible pricing and with the highest reseller margins.  2007 saw many resellers join the GlobalSign Partner Program, highlights of which include a high profile partnership with Verio and the announcement that strategic German aggregator CPS-Datensysteme elected to switch from GeoTrust (a VeriSign company) to GlobalSign.

For the enterprise market, a gap was discovered for a service that could be used by even the most distributed of organisations and could provide digital certificates to conform to stringent security requirements and provide the highest level of trust.  The service works on the principle of pre-vetting, where an enterprise may have an unlimited number of domains pre-vetted and added to its SSL Managed Service account to allow the enterprise to issue its own digital certificates, around the clock and with instant delivery.

“2007 was a busy year for GlobalSign with the re-launch, a greatly expanded management team and a company refocus around speed, innovation, excellent customer service and the development of solid technology partnerships with the likes of Adobe and SafeNet,” said Paul Tourret, managing director GlobalSign.  “In 2008, GlobalSign will look to take the SSL market by storm with the announcements of yet more feature rich products and services that are unrivalled in their ease-of use, reliability, functionality and most importantly, cost effectiveness.”

Throughout 2007, GlobalSign achieved a growth rate of over 180% compared with the incumbent’s growth rates of 16%.  The results underscore a growing customer preference for GlobalSign’s ability to rapidly issue cost effective feature packed digital certificates, as well as the strength and reach of the company’s publicly trusted root certificate.  The results are published in the December 2007 Secure Server Survey from Netcraft Ltd. (www.netcraft.com).

Further information about GlobalSign’s services can be found on its re-branded website at www.globalsign.co.uk.

*December 2007 Netcraft Secure Server Survey, Netcraft Ltd.

About GlobalSign
Established in 1996 and as a WebTrust accredited public certificate authority, GlobalSign offers publicly trusted SSL, including SSL Certificates, EV SSL, managed SSL services, S/MIME and Code Signing Certificates for use on all platforms including mobile devices. Its Trusted Root solution uses the widely embedded GlobalSign Root CA certificates to provide immediate PKI trust for Microsoft CA and enterprise CAs, eliminating the costs of using untrusted Root Certificates. Its partnership with Adobe to provide Certified Document Services (CDS) enables secure digitally signed PDF documents, certified transcripts and e-invoices.  These core Digital Certificate solutions allow its thousands of authenticated customers to conduct secure online transactions, data transfer, distribution of tamper-proof code, and protection of online identities for secure email and access control.  The company has a history of innovation within the online security industry and has offices in the US, UK, Belgium, Japan, and China. 

GMO Internet Group
GMO Internet Group, headquartered in Japan, is a leading force in the Internet industry offering one of the most comprehensive ranges of Internet services worldwide. The group holds top domestic market share in domain registration, web hosting, and payment processing and provides a host of other Internet services including global online security services, e-commerce solutions, and Internet advertising to both businesses and individuals. At the centre of the group is GMO Internet, Inc. a company listed on the prestigious first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE: 9449). Please visit www.gmo.jp/en for further details.

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