SA-based Internet privacy and security company Thawte has signed up its first Chinese reseller, WoTrust, allowing it to enter the world`s largest IT and e-commerce market.
Gary Novitzkas, Thawte`s head of global sales, says the company has long been active in the Korean and the Japanese markets, but, until recently, had failed to make an impression in China.
This change could be attributed to "a general thaw in the way the Chinese are opening up and the fact that China is experiencing a major growth in its information and technology sectors. Also, the growth of Chinese e-commerce means their market needs verification systems more than ever," he says.
Novitzkas says the venture is expected to generate about $100 000 (R680 000) in revenue this year.
"The potential is huge and we are looking at the possibility of appointing other partners to resell our products," he says.
International arena
Thawte first hit the headlines in 1999, when its sale to US-owned e-commerce group VeriSign made Mark Shuttleworth SA`s first Internet billionaire. Since then it has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of VeriSign, although it continues to operate out of this country.
"We started operating in the international arena from day one. We always have staff available to anyone, anywhere, 24 hours a day and some 26 languages are spoken in the company," Novitzkas says.
He says the growth of e-commerce in the Asian region has increased the need for secure verification services such as Thawte`s stringent identity assurance SSL (secure sockets layer) certificates, SSL Web Server and SGC SuperCerts, as well as SSL123, Thawte`s domain validated SSL offering.
"Thawte`s code signing certificates are becoming increasingly important among application developers, many of whom are located in Asian countries, to verify the authenticity of their applications," Novitzkas says.
He says these certificates ensure a person receiving a piece of code written somewhere else comes from the person who is supposed to have done it and that it was not tampered with during the transmission.
According to Richard Wang, WoTrust CEO, another major reason for partnering with Thawte in China is that the verification company accepts Chinese business licences as proof documents.
"It`s very important in our market because many Chinese companies don`t have English names in their business licence, which creates an inconvenience when English version proof documents are requested," Wang says.
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