Profile: Verisign, Inc. (VRSN.O)

VeriSign, Inc. (VeriSign), incorporated on April 12, 1995, is a provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. The Company offers a variety of Internet and communications-related services, which are marketed through Website sales, direct field sales, channel sales, telesales, and member organizations in its global affiliate network. VeriSign’s business consists of two business segments: Internet Infrastructure and Identity Services (3IS), which consists of Naming Services, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate Services, Identity and Authentication Services (IAS), and VeriSign Japan, and Other Services, which represents continuing operations of non-core businesses and legacy products and services from divested businesses. In October 2008, The News Corporation took full ownership of mobile content provider Jamba by buying VeriSign's 49% stake. In May 2009, TNS, Inc. completed the acquisition of the Communications Services Group from VeriSign. In July 2009, SecureWorks, Inc. announced that it has closed its acquisition of the Managed Security Services (MSS) business from VeriSign. In October 2009, AT&T Inc. announced the acquisition of VeriSign's global security consulting business. In October 2009, Syniverse Technologies Inc completed its acquisition of the Company’s messaging and mobile media services. In November 2009, the Company sold its m-Qube, Inc., a mobile messaging aggregator to Mobile Messenger.

Internet Infrastructure and Identity Services Group

The Internet Infrastructure and Identity Services (3IS) Group consists of the Naming Services business, SSL Certificate Services business, IAS business, and VeriSign Japan. The Naming Services business operates the authoritative directory of all .com, .net, .cc, .tv, .name, and .jobs domain names. The Company is a registry of domain names within the .com and .net generic top-level domains (gTLDs) under agreements with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the United States Department of Commerce (DOC). As a registry, it maintains the master directory of all second-level domain names in these top-level domains (e.g., johndoe.com and janedoe.net). These top-level domains are supported by its global constellation of domain name servers. In addition, the Company owns and maintains the shared registration system that allows all registrars to enter new second-level domain names into the master directory and to submit modifications, transfers, re-registrations and deletions for existing second-level domain names (Shared Registration System). SSL Certificate services enable enterprises and Internet merchants to implement and operate secure networks and Websites that utilize SSL protocol. These services provide customers the means to authenticate themselves to their end users and Website visitors and to encrypt communications between client browsers and Webservers. VeriSign offer three SSL Certificate Services: VeriSign Secure Site and Secure Site Pro Certificates; VeriSign Secure Site with Extended Validation (EV) and GeoTrust and thawte Branded Certificates.

The Company offers a suite of Identity and Authentication products and services, including its VeriSign Identity Protection service, its Fraud Detection Service, its Managed PKI service, and its Unified Authentication service. Its VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) services are a suite of identity protection and authentication services that help enable consumer-facing applications to provide a secure online experience for end users. Its VIP Authentication service provides a visible means for businesses to easily issue and/or accept multiple credentials from users. The Company’s Fraud Detection service provides an invisible means of delivering proactive protection to consumers by detecting fraudulent logins and transactions in real-time without affecting a legitimate user’s Web experience. Its Managed PKI service helps enterprises to easily secure intranets, extranets, VPNs, email, and e-commerce applications. The Company’s Unified Authentication service provides a single, integrated platform for provisioning and managing all types of two-factor authentication credentials used to validate users, devices or applications for a variety of purposes, such as remote access, windows logon, and Wi-Fi access.

Other Services

The Other Services segment consists of the continuing operations of its non-core Pre-pay billing and payment services (Pre-pay) business, as well as legacy products and services from divested businesses. In Other Services, the products and services from divested businesses primarily include: Jamba, which provided mobile entertainment to consumers; the RDS business, which offered point-of-sale data information for retail, pharmaceutical and consumer goods customers; and the CDN business, which offered broadband content services that enable the delivery of high-quality video and other rich media securely and efficiently at a very large scale.