Hello Tony,
Wednesday, January 10, 2001, 11:28:10 PM, you wrote:
T> Excellent. Here's a few questions:
T> What is the suggested retail price?
T> How will the Tucows certs compare to the Equifax offering technology-wise?
T> Will there be a volumne discount?
T> Equifax certs retail for less than $99 but they don't seem to have a
T> streamlined system
T> for ordering or a private-label program which would make the Tucows $99
T> wholesale price more
T> attractive to us even if it is higher.
I too like the idea of Tucows offering SSL certs and can't wait to
read all about it when the site is finally available, but I do have
some reservations.
Equifax: certs currently retail for $79, going up to $99 in the near
future. Their "resellers" can purchase a cert for $68. Equifax
returns a signed cert within 48 hours of CSR submission, and are
claiming they will reduce the turn around time to 24 hrs soon.
I'm very interested to see how a "private label" program will work for
certs. Most people don't even know what a CSR is, let alone how to
generate one. That's where the service providers come in, so I really
don't see all that much benefit to a private label program, yet.
Tucows has done a fantastic job with OpenSRS, but there's not as many
restrictions when registering a domain name as there are when applying
for a secure certificate. You can't cut corners on the process, and I
wouldn't buy certs from a company who did. (Not saying that Tucows
will.)
I'm just not seeing how a (customizable?) RWI for certs will
streamline the process any more than what's available from companies
like Equifax. Maybe someone can enlighten me? The only thing Equifax
is lacking IMO is a paper trail for resellers. However, one can
always keep their own records, as many OSRS resellers do.
This is why I'm hitting on the price point here. Although $30 may not
be that much money, it adds up much faster than the few $ margin of domain
registrations. With the money I save on certs, I can offer domain
registrations for "free" and still make enough to buy lunch. A man has
to eat once in a while...
Personal Disclaimer:
Yes, I'm an Equifax "reseller", and no, I'm not looking to start
another pricing flamewar, reseller bashing festival, lynch mob hunt,
etc... Mr. Green
asked for opinions, so I'm stating mine.
--
Best regards,
Brian Curtis
