Q&A: Comodo Business Development VP James Langman

Comodo's James Langman says partners are at the core of Comodo's business model.

In an email interview with the WHIR, James Langman discusses the advantages of Comodo’s digital certificates, and why a growing number of web hosts are choosing to partner with Comodo to provide their customers safety and security.

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Comodo (www.comodo.com) is in the business of security. Its anti-malware software package, which debuted in 2008, is currently protecting PCs worldwide from viruses and other malware by blocking unwanted software from downloading itself and running. It recently updated Comodo Backup to version 2.1, providing a free solution that protects against data loss crises by taking real-time backups of user data with added flexibility and control. And just this week it announced a free DNS routing service. 

Web hosts, however, are most likely interested in Comodo’s SSL certification, a value-added service hosts can easily add to beef up their hosting offerings and drive up revenues.

This year has been very significant for Comodo, which issued its two-millionth digital certificate. It is also holding onto a significant share of the more contemporary Extended Validation SSL certificates, which offer greater security assurance and turn the address bar green on modern web browsers. This signals to customers that the website’s identity has been confirmed, and not a phony site out to steal passwords or credit card numbers — quite an advantage during the current holiday shopping rush.

Comodo business development vice president James Langman explains in the following interview what makes a partnership with Comodo a unique advantage for web hosts, and what they can expect in the new year from Comodo.

The WHIR: It seems a good time to evaluate 2009 as it nears its end. What are the key milestones for Comodo that you will remember from this year?

James Langman: 2009 marks another successful year for the Comodo companies, ratifying our position as a leading provider of digital certificate services. Our Certification Authority (CA), business issued its two-millionth digital certificate, and now controls more than a quarter of the global business-validated SSL certificate market, a large part of which comes from sales made by our web-hosting partners.

We had a good year with newer certificate types, closing the year as the second largest provider of Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, and a leading provider of Unified Communications (UC) Certificates. These are highly favorable indicators to us in an evolving digital certificate marketplace.

Comodo also launched its Live PC Support service, which is now available to all of our partners and introduced Comodo TV ,to better inform all segments of the Internet community about threats, opportunities, and solutions relating to Internet trust and security. 

Finally, we passed 25 million installations of our desktop security software, which in addition to protecting Internet users all over the world really helps build the Comodo brand.

What initiatives is Comodo currently pursuing to reach the hosting community?

JL: We view the webhosting community as an increasingly competitive place to conduct business so our initiatives are really focused around providing our partners within the space with the relevant products and tools they need to differentiate their product offerings and to achieve a competitive advantage. Practically speaking this means continued innovation through R&D and providing our partners with innovative, cost effective security products that will allow their users to interact and conduct business on the internet safely and securely while realizing strong margins. 

As a follow-up, can you tell us about Comodo’s plans to enhance these efforts in the coming year? (If not, can you offer a general direction for the company and its efforts in the hosting space?)

JL: 2010 will see us introduce some exciting new features to our core digital certificate offerings and also several new products will be released. Specific to the hosting space we will also further enhance our reseller platforms to make it even easier for our partners to resell all of our products with minimum development effort. We’re encouraging our customers to take advantage of new, innovative sales tools we make available, like Internet video for their sites. We’ll also continue to support various hosting industry events where we will showcase these technologies. 

We’ve seen companies such as Go Daddy recently entering the SSL certificate marketplace with bargain-priced certificates. How does a company like Comodo differentiate itself from those competitors?

JL: Comodo is solely focused on Internet trust and security. It’s our core competency and is consistently associated with our brand. When millions of consumers see the Comodo name on a certificate or a trustmark on a customer’s website, they are reassured by this strong association with Internet trust and security. We further differentiate Comodo by offering a comprehensive portfolio of security and authentication solutions spanning digital certificate services, multifactor authentication, and PCI scanning through to desktop security software which protects millions of users worldwide. Comodo’s partners have access to a wealth of solutions which enable them to broaden their product portfolios and generate revenues through a single provider and with the strength of a globally trusted brand behind them. As a technology company with significant development resources available to us, we are also able to tailor our solutions to the exact needs of our customers – something that we’ve found to be of great importance to many of our customers. It is also important to remember that not all SSL certificates are created equally and while bargain-priced certificates are available, the level of identity assurance and trust that they provide is questionable. We see that many consumers are becoming better educated however and are seeking to do business with sites that offer the identity assurance of high-assurance certificates such as Extended Validation SSL to secure their online experience. E-merchants and their hosting industry suppliers must recognize the need to provide consumers with the security and identity assurance they require to transact confidently on the Internet. Those that don’t will lose business.

What advantages do hosting providers gain from including SSL options in their hosting plans as a value added service? Any why is Comodo a particularly good option for a partnership?

JL: Offering SSL certificates as a value-added service allows hosting providers to better serve their customers and further enhance their product offerings with a highly relevant, frequently mandated, and simple-to-sell security product. From a commercial standpoint, SSL offers a new and recurring revenue stream with extremely healthy margins. SSL = increased revenue and profitability.

Comodo offers a straight forward approach to reselling SSL certificates. Our multi-tier partner program is designed to fit the individual needs of our partners. This ranges from a zero-touch affiliate system, easy to use management interfaces through to a full API toolkit which allows organizations to completely integrate our offerings within their existing workflows and platforms. In each instance we take care of much of the heavy lifting allowing our partners to focus on their core business.

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