CRN Interview: Stratton Sclavos, VeriSign

CRN: With the launch of your new security services, what is it that VeriSign is trying to accomplish?

Sclavos: What we really always believed we were doing was building a scalable back-end utility that would provide network services. We were really the first successful ASP in the market focused on security. Now you're going to see us branch out those capabilities into other areas of security, namely perimeter, application, transaction and commerce. In 2000, we bought Network Solutions so we could sell domain names. We want to marry the back-end directory technology that serves up DNS lookups with security and transaction technology to create this robust utility. And as of July, we rolled out a new architecture on the back-end of the Internet that can handle 100 billion lookups a day.

CRN: How does this change the nature of security compared to what people typically do today?

Sclavos: Instead of reacting to a security event when it hits a firewall at the perimeter, we can actually see it coming, we can help mitigate them and help people avoid them. Today, the enterprise thinks of security as a big border at its wall. When an attack comes, the first time you see it is when it hits your wall. What good is that? It's like knowing there is a crime spree in your neighborhood, and not doing anything about it until you are attacked. When an enterprise is attacked, that information should be made available to another enterprise in a global early-warning system. In running DNS, we see global traffic much earlier than any single enterprise could. And we're going to boil all that data down into actionable items.

CRN: Why will this service be attractive to solution providers?

Sclavos: As we broaden our portfolio, there is a lot more opportunity for the channel to add value, such as network configuration, cross-corporate connectivity and business supply chains. They can let [business customers] choose best-of-breed products and this gives you the cohesive integration layer where they can bring some true value. For them, it requires less capital--we have the domain experts and you don't have to have the resources on your payroll. As your business scales, we magically add capacity. You don't have to buy more machines or add more people. And we get you a service with a shorter sales cycle.

CRN: How will this affect other security vendors?

Sclavos: We see this as an ecosystem. You will see VeriSign create APIs, and products from other vendors will be VeriSign-certified. We will create a whole ecosystem across network, application and transaction security. In our history, we have had to recognize would-be competitors early and work with them to create a win-win situation. We did it with Microsoft, IBM, First Data Corp and AT&T. The product vendors could make a shift to our model. But on our side, we are agnostic about product. We will try and define the platform so these guys can play with it. But it would not surprise me if in the early days as we strive for market share and visibility, this looks competitive.

CRN: Beyond security, where else can this type of directory technology be applied?

Sclavos: Last year we bought into telecom just at the crash. I think this will come to be viewed as one of our most strategic acquisitions of all time. The way you route phone calls is that you look up numbers in a database, and then you take it across a wire or wireless network. So you need fast lookups, routing, authentication, and, over time, wireless transactions. Our goal is by 2010, over half of all network interactions--both voice and data--will touch VeriSign services somewhere along the way. We can also help carriers discover bottlenecks on their networks and where fraud is occurring using pattern recognition.

CRN: On a separate front, VeriSign has generated a fair amount of controversy with its SiteFinder service. What is the core issue in your mind?

Sclavos: At the end of the day, there are a couple of truisms, and one of them is that the vocal minority is just that. Within two days of SiteFinder being out there, the vast majority of our customers and prospects were fine. The noise we're still hearing is from the technical purists or those with a political bias or agenda because they are competitors. In the domain names and DNS space, there is a strange dynamic at work. You have a quasi-government organization, ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers] made up of purists and attorneys. You also have an incredibly overzealous vocal minority that thinks it still owns the Internet, and the anarchists that think everything should be free. And then you have everybody else that uses the Internet every day and doesn't know what ICANN is. I think this is a broken model that we have talked to ICANN and the Department of Commerce about. If SiteFinder is the point to drive the debate home, then let's have it. All of this is noise from the misinformed or the politically motivated. If you look at what has been deployed and how it is being used, the vast majority are getting a better Internet experience than before.

CRN: So what do you want people to remember about VeriSign?

Sclavos: The best we can hope for is that we're taken for granted. That doesn't mean that we don't feel very strongly about the obligation we have to this stuff at levels of performance and scale that no one can touch. We are going to enter 2004 knowing absolutely that we can be best in the world delivering that kind of service. And we are about to come into market spaces that are going to have a renaissance of growth.