ABSTRACT
The market for PKI solutions remains in a state of anticipation; and as vendors await the explosion of demand that has been expected for several years now, they are jockeying for position with a variety of acquisitions and partnerships. The three leading contributors or vendors of PKI software solutions are VeriSign, Entrust, and Baltimore Technologies. They provide several types of PKI solutions, including outsourced solutions in which the vendor manages the infrastructure and issues the certificates, in-house solutions in which the customer issues the certificates, and merchant certificates used mainly for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. While the three leading vendors have historically emphasized different types of solutions, they have started to converge in terms of their offerings. In addition, they have been busy rectifying perceived weaknesses, expanding geographically, and experimenting with new types of integration. While revenues for all three are still low (less than $400 million), they are enjoying rapid growth. Meanwhile, several other vendors also want to play in this space, and some of them are quite competitive. Let us first take a look at the leading three.
