Posts by James Koole

Last month we significantly expanded our SSL Certificates lineup to include more of the Internet’s leading SSL brands, and a full range of SSL certificates including code signing certs and Extended Validation (EV) certs. With 16 different options, you might be wondering what the best approach is to achieve the best results when selling these SSL products.

To help you out, we’ve arranged a free webinar with Jay Schiavo, Senior Manager, Product Management for VeriSign titled, “Understanding How to Effectively Sell SSL Certificates.” Jay has a very good understanding of the specific needs of OpenSRS resellers and during the session he’ll help you make sense of it all, explaining how to position and sell multiple brands and types to your customers.

We’ll see you there!

Details:

REGISTRATION IS FREE
What:Understanding How to Effectively Sell SSL Certificates
When: Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 11:00 A.M. EDT

And don’t forget about the other free webinar announced last week and coming up on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 – Web Hosting Solutions that Work for ISPs.

Are you an Internet Service Provider that is allowing your competitors to establish business relationships with your customers? Do you have a strategy to grow your business and react to the changing needs of your customers?

In challenging times like these, it’s critical that you understand and recognize any opportunity to strengthen your existing customer relationships.

Many ISPs overlook the opportunities that offering web hosting and domain name services provide. As a result, they open the door for competitors who tap into their customer base and realize the potential that they should be realizing for themselves.

If you would like to learn more about how to tap into the potential within your own customer base, we invite you to an exclusive, free webinar with Adam Eisner, Product Manager, Domains for OpenSRS. This webinar is presented by the Federation of Internet Solution Providers of the Americas (FISPA) and OpenSRS.

During this presentation, Adam will explain how to:

• Integrate web hosting into your service offering
• Leverage related hosting and domain-based services to add revenue and strengthen your customer relationships
• Better understand the changing business landscape facing Internet Service Providers

Details:

REGISTRATION IS FREE
What: Web Hosting Solutions that Work for ISPs
When: Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 2:00pm EDT

We’ll see you there!

GeoTrust, thawte, VeriSign brands and Extended Validation and Code-signing certs added

Starting today, OpenSRS Resellers can now sell 16 different SSL certificates from three of the world’s leading SSL certificate providers. We’ve added a range of products from both thawte and VeriSign in addition to the GeoTrust-branded products you could sell through us until now.

On top of the new brands, we’re also adding some new types of SSL certificates, including Extended Validation (EV) and code-signing certs to the mix. Full details and pricing is available on our website. As with our GeoTrust products, Resellers can take advantage of the super pricing we’ve negotiated with these certificate providers.

Are you Selling SSL Certificates?

If you aren’t yet selling SSL certificates, now is a great time to add them to your product lineup. These days security is top of mind with businesses and consumers alike, and SSL certificates bring that peace of mind to consumers, allowing them to complete transactions and share personal information with confidence.

A long-standing misconception around SSL certificates is that they are only really needed where financial information is being passed between computer and webserver. But the reality is that an SSL certificate is a must in any application where valuable data is being passed. That includes everything from forum logins, to email servers, to ecommerce and control panels. If the data on the other side of the login has value (and it probably does, or it wouldn’t be protected by a login), then that data should be encrypted and protected by an SSL connection.

Reseller Webinar

We’re planning a webinar for our Resellers in the next month or two with our friends at VeriSign. They’ll be bringing you some great information on how you can integrate SSL certificates into your product lineup and how you can maximize your sales. Expect to hear more about that shortly.

Telnic has just released two new free apps that allow mobile users to use and manage .tel domains. There’s one app for the iPhone and one for Blackberry users as well.

Telnic says, “My.tel, the iPhone application, allows a user to log into their TelHosting account directly from their iPhone and update or manage all their .tel contact information and details, making it simple and easy to update their .tel on the go.”

Over on the Blackberry side, the .TEL application goes further, according to Telnic, “allowing users to easily lookup .tel domains and save the data in their Blackberry address books. It also enables them to switch profiles, accept friend requests for private data and synchronize their contacts with live .tel data so their address book is always up to date.”

There is more information on both apps at: http://telnic.org/community-applications.html.

Downloading these applications to you iPhone or BlackBerry is easy. Just head to http://apps.telnic.tel in the browser on your Blackberry or grab the iPhone app from the link below.

As mentioned last week, we’re ready to roll out the latest version of our webmail application to Resellers. Webmail 5.5 is now available in the Test environment. We encourage email resellers to login to the Test environment, enable it on your test account and take it for a spin.

Webmail 5.5 is part of the continuing evolution of our webmail application. The overall look and feel is very similar to what users are accustomed to and the transition should be relatively seamless for most.

Here’s what’s changing in Webmail 5.5:

Features:

• Added a Calendar: The calendar features a full “drag-and-drop” interface and is available in both the standard and basic interfaces. Calendars can be shared within the same domain if the end-user chooses to do so. Users can import calendar data from standard ical/.ics format calendar files or from a public ical/.ics format URL. Calendars can be exported to a standard ical/.ics format file. Resellers can choose whether to offer the calendar to their users using the Branding Tool.
• Added RSS Feed Reader: Users can now subscribe to and read RSS feeds within webmail. Users can enter their own RSS feeds or select from a predefined catalog of popular feed sources. The ability for Resellers to choose the feeds within the catalog is planned for a future release, but for now, the contents of the catalog is determined by OpenSRS and contains a broad range of different sources. The RSS Feed Reader is currently only available in the standard interface. As with the Calendar, the RSS Feed Reader can be enabled or disabled by Resellers via the Branding Tool.
• Improved “Basic” interface: The Basic Interface has been upgraded to support all features of the Standard Interface with the exception of the RSS Feed Reader feature. The Basic Interface also now includes a rich text editor and spell checker in the email compose area.

Performance:

• Improved overall speed and responsiveness: Much work was done to optimize webmail across different browsers and for users on slower connections. The result is a dramatic improvement in speed and performance. The improvement is felt across all browsers, but is most noticeable on Internet Explorer and for users with large mailboxes.

Usability:

• Added Dashboard hiding: A new “Dashboard” double-arrow button allows the left-hand folder pane area to be hidden and restored.
• Improved folder icons: Core folders now have custom icons to make them easier to identify.v
• Added/reorganized message list columns: We’ve added Reply-to/Forward Flags, the ability to mark a message as flagged/unflagged. Block/Safe Sender functions have been moved to the “More Options” drop-down. A Message-ID column heading and sort option has also been added. The “Attachment” column has been moved to the right side of the message index display.
• Improved Search: Users can now choose to search by sender, subject, message headers or message bodies. The default continues to be search within the message headers.
• Added a full message source viewer: Users can view the full, raw source of a message.
• Improved email composition: We added the ability to request a “read receipt” when sending a message. Users can now also set message priority when composing and sending email. An auto-save feature has been added that automatically saves composed messages as a draft periodically. Spell-check has been added to the basic webmail interface. The rich text editor has been improved to include more formatting options.
• Improved the Address Book: Added the ability to import from Mozilla Thunderbird address book files.
• Improved the General Settings area: The Interface Preferences and Display Preferences have been combined under a single tab called “Display Preferences.”
• Added Secure POP3 Mail retrieval: POP3 external mail fetching now supports SSL connections.

OpenSRS is “Reseller Friendly” and that motto is something we think about every day when making decisions about new products and features on existing products, like OpenSRS Email Service. While we’re excited to get this new webmail out to users, we understand that this kind of upgrade can have an impact on your support departments, and that email resellers will want to provide some warning to their users to help them get up to speed on the new version. With that in mind, we’re rolling out Webmail 5.5 in a preview program for the first little while.

Here’s how the preview program works:

• Participation in the preview is recommended, but optional, and the default is to not show the preview to end-users. Resellers can enable the preview through the branding tool in the Mail Administration Center (MAC).
• When the preview is enabled, users are offered a choice between the new webmail interface or the current webmail on the login screen.
• At the end of the preview period (which will run for at least eight weeks), the preview option will be removed, and all users will automatically use the new webmail.

Throughout the preview period we’re very interested in hearing from you about the new webmail application and how your customers are responding to it. There is a feedback form that is integrated into the login screen for webmail where users can share their thoughts.

Webmail 5.5 was promoted to the Production Test Environment on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009. We suggest that all of our OpenSRS Email resellers to log into the Test environment to see both how to enable the preview for your users, and also to see the improved webmail interface.

Right now, we’re on track to make the preview available on the Live servers for both Cluster A and Cluster B beginning on Thursday, April 30th, 2009. At that time, you’ll be able to login to the MAC and enable the preview for your users. As mentioned, the preview is disabled by default; it is up to you to determine when you are ready to begin the preview.

Here’s a short screencast that shows how to enable the webmail preview using the Branding Tool within the Mail Adminstration Center.

Since we re-launched our OpenSRS Email Service on our own, unified email platform in mid-2007, we’ve been very busy working to make it even better. A lot of what has been done was focused on the back-end infrastructure – making the service faster, more reliable and more scalable. But not all the work has been focused on the “plumbing.” For the last little while, we’ve also been working on a new release of the webmail application, version 5.5, and it’s nearly ready for its debut.

Over the next few months we’ll be providing our email customers with a way to let their users take the next release of our webmail application for a spin. This opt-in “preview” will run for at least eight weeks between when we make it available on the live servers, to when we retire the old webmail application and make version 5.5 the default webmail for all users.

One important thing to note is that this is not a “beta” program. We’re bringing the new webmail out as a completed application, but in a preview mode. The goal is to get some feedback on some new features we’re adding, but more importantly, we want to ensure that our email resellers can ease into the new webmail with as little impact as possible.

Better Performance, Calendar and RSS

This webmail upgrade is really part of the continuing evolution of our current webmail application. It’s really not all that different from an end-user perspective when it comes to reading and sending mail, managing contacts and doing all of the things you do with webmail.

The big change is in the performance of webmail. We’ve done a ton of work to optimize webmail and the result is a dramatic improvement in speed and performance. It’s felt across all browsers, but the difference is most noticeable on Internet Explorer. It’s much more responsive, especially for users with lots of mail.

And aside from the new stuff “under the hood,” there are a couple of new features we’re adding, namely a calendar and RSS feeds.

The calendar is a full-featured, web-based calendar with drag and drop, as you’d expect. The RSS reader allows users to subscribe to, and read RSS feeds alongside their mail.

We’ll be sharing more about the preview program and the rollout of webmail in the coming days. Rest assured, it will be up to you to decide when and how you’ll bring this new webmail upgrade to your customers during the transition period.

It’s worth mentioning that Resellers are free to take, use and adapt any of the content that we provide on the blog. So, if you see stuff here that you think you can use to help sell products and services to your customers, by all means, grab it and use it. Nothing makes us happier than to see resellers take our stuff and use it to drive sales and educate their customers.

To make it official for our Resellers: Please steal content from us! Content on this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License. and Resellers are free to use the content for commercial purposes, including remixing or adapting the content as required. We like attribution (and please retain any attributions we’ve included), but we don’t require that Resellers attribute the material to us if they are using this to market to their customers.

Along with domain names and email, all OpenSRS Resellers are able to sell a range of GeoTrust SSL Digital Certificates through OpenSRS. Many, but not all, of our Resellers are taking advantage of the opportunity that selling SSL provides. I thought it would be worthwhile to provide a primer on how SSL Certificates work in advance of some pretty big news that we’re hoping to be able to talk about later this week and early next week. You’ll want to keep an eye on this blog and your inbox.

A lot of what follows comes from Verisign (who own GeoTrust, our current SSL provider). Both the Verisign and GeoTrust websites have extensive information available for you to better understand, and therefore sell SSL Certificates.

What SSL Certificates Do:

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology protect websites and make it easy for visitors to trust websites in three essential ways:

1. An SSL Certificate enables encryption of sensitive information during online transactions.
2. Each SSL Certificate contains unique, authenticated information about the certificate owner.
3. A Certificate Authority verifies the identity of the certificate owner when it is issued.

Who needs an SSL Certificate?

If you, or your customers fit into any of the following categories, then an SSL Certificate is a must:

• Operate an online store or accept online orders and credit cards
• Offer a login or sign in on your site
• Process sensitive data such as address, birth date, license, or ID numbers
• Require compliance with privacy and security requirements
• Value privacy and expect others to trust you.

How SSL Encryption Works

Imagine sending mail through the postal system in a clear envelope. Anyone with access to it can see the data. If it looks valuable, they might take it or change it. An SSL Certificate establishes a private communication channel between the browser and web server enabling encryption of the data during transmission. Encryption scrambles the data, essentially creating an envelope for message privacy.

Each SSL Certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information and the private key is used to decipher it. When a Web browser points to a secured domain, a Secure Sockets Layer handshake authenticates the server (the website) and the client (the web browser). An encryption method is established with a unique session key and secure transmission can begin. True 128-bit SSL Certificates enable every site visitor to experience the strongest SSL encryption available to them.

How Authentication Works

Imagine receiving an envelope with no return address and a form asking for your bank account number. In the case of organization- or Extended-validation certificates, every SSL Certificate is created for a particular server in a specific domain for a verified business entity. The validation process for EV certificates is quite extensive and provides fuller information about the website owner than a standard certificate. When the SSL handshake occurs, the browser requires authentication information from the server. By clicking the closed padlock in the browser window or certain SSL trust marks (such as the VeriSign Secured Seal or GeoTrust True Site Seal), the website visitor sees the authenticated organization name. In high-security browsers (IE7/8, Firefox 3.0+, Safari 3.2+, Chrome and Opera 9.2+), the authenticated organization name is prominently displayed and the address bar turns green when an Extended Validation SSL Certificate is detected. If the information does not match or the certificate has expired, the browser displays an error message or warning.

A Matter of Trust

At the end of the day, SSL Certificates are all about trust. If you want to develop and instill a sense of trust with website visitors, an SSL Certificate is the way to do it. An SSL-protected site gives users the confidence to share personal information without having to worry about whether that data is safe as it travels around the Internet. And, the SSL Certificate provides further peace of mind to web users by offering verification that those in control of the web server are who the web surfer thinks they are.

If trust is important to the end users of your customers – and I’d venture a guess that it is – then they need to know that one of the best ways to build that trust is to secure their websites with an SSL Certificate along with a prominently displayed site seal that end users recognize and trust.

A few weeks back, I blogged about the presentation that Bob Angus, from Verisign gave at WebhostingDay in Germany. Bob had some great tips for how to drive sales through SSL digital certificates.

For Resellers who are already selling SSL certificates through OpenSRS, there was some great information that you can use to drive sales in your customer base. For Resellers not selling SSL certificates yet, have a look at that post and then ask yourself why you haven’t offered them to your customers yet.

What an SSL Certificate Does

You may be under the impression that SSL certificates are only for ecommerce sites, or banks and your customers aren’t Bank of America or eBay so you don’t need to offer SSL certificates. That kind of thinking can lead to you overlooking a huge potential market for SSL certificates that’s just waiting to be tapped.

SSL certificates really do two things:

• First, an SSL certificate provides security by encrypting the data between the browser and the web server. Obviously, data encryption is important for financial transactions or other situations where websites are requesting sensitive data from visitors. Without that SSL certificate, and the little lock icon in the browser, most web surfers won’t provide that data.
• Second, SSL also provides identity verification, primarily through the new Extended Validation (EV) certificates. You’ve probably seen EV in action – sites with an EV certificate will cause the address bar on Firefox, or IE to turn green, and you are able to view information about the website that will help you to confirm that you are dealing with who you think you are dealing with. I’ve grabbed a screenshot of GeoTrust’s EV certificate in action on Firefox that’s shown above.

Applications Where Encryption Matters

Think about that first use for SSL certificates for a minute – encrypting and protecting data – and then start thinking about all the cases where you, and especially your customers, might want to have an encrypted connection between the browser and the server. I’m thinking about web forums, blogging platforms, webmail, web server control panels, company intranets, corporate wikis, VPNs, customer portals, etc.

The list of potential applications for SSL certificates is nearly endless. Now ask yourself this: “Do my customers do any of those things?” The answer is most likely, “Yes.” Now ask yourself again “Why haven’t I offered them SSL certificates yet?”

By the way, you’ll want to keep an eye on the blog over the next few weeks. We’ll be talking a bit more about SSL certificates and why now might be a very good time to start selling through OpenSRS if you aren’t already.

Day two is pretty much a wrap. Things are calming down in the exhibit hall, and WebhostingDay 2009 is rapidly coming to a close. We spent a great couple of days here meeting with some great people and having some good fun as well.

This was my first trip to Europe, and I found it very enlightening to see the some of the differences between North American and European cultures. One of the most interesting things for me was hearing a bunch of different languages spoken around the show floor. At any moment, we could have customers coming to the booth and interacting with Marco Zuliani, our EMEA Sales Director, or Luigi Lagonigro, one of our EMEA Account Managers, in Italian, German, French, Spanish or English.

Often times someone would come to the booth and start with English or German before realizing that one of our people was fluent in their language. Immediately the mood would change and the conversation would shift and things would become more casual.

Having the ability to explain what OpenSRS is all about in the language most comfortable to the person visiting was exceptionally valuable.

As well, at some of the trade shows I’ve attended in the past, there was a clear line between business and pleasure. It was pretty much all business during the day, and all fun in the evenings. At WebhostingDay, that line is blurred – one minute you might be talking to a prospective customer at the booth, the next you find yourself strapped into a wild ride or playing Wii games in the booth on the other side of the hall.

All in all, we found it to be a great conference and well worth the trip. To our hosts at Phantasialand and to the organizers of WebhostingDay 2009, we say thank you, merci, danke, grazie and gracias.