Why Free? How will Comodo Make Money?

[Guest]

[Melih]

Ok – so now you must be wondering – “What’s the catch? If these product beats comparable solutions from the “large” software companies - why offer it for free?”

Well we are offering it free because, as a Certification Authority, our revenue comes from the online business community. These businesses can only grow if consumers feel safe surfing and shopping online. Unfortunately, in today’s Internet environment, trust has eroded and so has online sales growth. We want to reverse that trend.  The more people trust the security of the Internet the more they will shop online. The more consumers shop online – the more online businesses will be created. And there’ll be more products and services we can sell to these growing businesses. More transactions means more need for "Trust" and Comodo is the company who is "Creating Trust Online".

That’s why we developed these products for free distribution.  So you will never, ever have to pay for renewals, auto updates or subscription fees (and we mean ever)!

So try it out. If you like it spread the word. As a Certification Authority, Comodo has a special responsibility to help protect consumers on the Internet. But we can do better with your insight and intelligence. Your input will help us come up with more and more ideas to make every PC safer. Like you, we’re crazy about the net but not the fraudster nuts on it. And, so we’re developing top line products every day to counteract every trick (of theirs) in the book.

So join the good fight and help us make the Internet truly safe for all users – from Grandma to the Grand Duchess of Poznon - by participating with us in our development efforts with your creative ideas, concerns and observations. We know they’re valuable.

Melih Abdulhayoglu

CEO/Chief Security Architect

Comodo

[j mayo]

You are starting to provide a product as good if not better than the big antivius/firewall companies, how do you fund development and even the forums?

why don't you have a donation section?

is your aim maximum market penetration?

If it is do you expect a backlash from Macfee, Symantec, Norton, Zonealarm, etc?

Are you going to sell books on your products for revenue?

cheers

j mayo

[Melih]

You are starting to provide a product as good if not better than the big antivius/firewall companies, how do you fund development and even the forums?

why don't you have a donation section?

is your aim maximum market penetration?

If it is do you expect a backlash from Macfee, Symantec, Norton, Zonealarm, etc?

Are you going to sell books on your products for revenue?

cheers

j mayo

We are already an operationally profitable company. We have been in existence since 1998. We are the 2nd largest Certification Authority in the world (after Verisign) has over 150,000 customer worldwide. We are the guys who enable those yellow padlocks you see on your browser when you shopping etc (called SSL). We have offices in the US (2 offices) , UK (2 offices) , Ukraine (2 offices), India and worldwide employing around 300 people (and growing). So our business can already sustain all this investment in all this development and even this forum :-) Of course we expect Comodo to benefit from getting all these high quality free offerings into market place as it will help with our brand recognition and more importantly create a more trusted internet.

Melih

[j mayo]

sure that sounds good, but the way you are going your number of customers will be increasing dramatically in the near future, but most of them won't be paying.  Are you trying to get bought out by another company?

[Melih]

No most definitely we are not!

We already have hundreds of thousands of (if not low millions) users using our free products. We have a good customer care dept and have created enough infrastructure for the customer care to be minimal. So we will scale well plus we have lots of good people in the forums who are kind enough to help with Comodo users which help reduce customer support costs.

Melih

[System]

You guys have my trust ever since Comodo was still at version 1.  Many users at Arovax and avast! forum even recomend Comodo (in fact, I'm seeing many respected Arovax and avast! members here in this forum!). 

I really miss Sygate Personal Firewall ever since it was acquired by Symantec and discontinued their free firewall. 

But continue on providing a full strength firewall, the best software is most of the time (if not always) a freeware.   

[j mayo]

No most definitely we are not!

We already have hundreds of thousands of (if not low millions) users using our free products. We have a good customer care dept and have created enough infrastructure for the customer care to be minimal. So we will scale well plus we have lots of good people in the forums who are kind enough to help with Comodo users which help reduce customer support costs.

Melih

don't get me wrong, I am not trying to mistrust you,  I just personally feel comfortable if I know what comodo stand to gain.  As long as i know that there is a way forwards for comodo to cash in at least to some minor extent then I say go for it.  We all have to pay the bills and so it is difficult to produce good products for no benefit, so if I knew what it was then great. 

Like for example sygate was bought out because people were downloading a good product for free and reducing the revenue of the charge for protection companies. With the quality of product you are producing and because the revenue that the antivirus/firewall corporates stand to lose, much more than sygate, so they will probably try and buy you out because you aren't charging either in a friendly way or in a hostile takeover.  Is comodo publically listed or privately owned?

Alternatively if there was a way to generate revenue, from book sales on your products, endorsements on your site, charging corporates for comercial use of the products, sponsorship from large corporates, then it would keep you in business and eventually make you competitive with the other large players in the arena.

[Melih]

don't get me wrong, I am not trying to mistrust you,  I just personally feel comfortable if I know what comodo stand to gain.  As long as i know that there is a way forwards for comodo to cash in at least to some minor extent then I say go for it.  We all have to pay the bills and so it is difficult to produce good products for no benefit, so if I knew what it was then great. 

Like for example sygate was bought out because people were downloading a good product for free and reducing the revenue of the charge for protection companies. With the quality of product you are producing and because the revenue that the antivirus/firewall corporates stand to lose, much more than sygate, so they will probably try and buy you out because you aren't charging either in a friendly way or in a hostile takeover.  Is comodo publically listed or privately owned?

Alternatively if there was a way to generate revenue, from book sales on your products, endorsements on your site, charging corporates for comercial use of the products, sponsorship from large corporates, then it would keep you in business and eventually make you competitive with the other large players in the arena.

Of course giving these products for free will somehow benefit Comodo financially (apart from brand building and increased trust that results in more transactions etc). There are some interesting ways of leveraging these which we would not like to discuss publicly as yet. But the issue still is: it will always be free for desktops (personal or business).

Melih

[dg05]

What did disappoint me with Comodo was the discussion in Wilders between Melth and Stem. In the end Melth lost patience with Stem and walked away. Stem however was correct in identifying a problem which was also mentioned here.

At that point I lost confidence in the f/w and decided not to even d/l it.

I would like to know if this issue has been resolved and to see the point verified by someone like Stem.

[j mayo]

Of course giving these products for free will somehow benefit Comodo financially (apart from brand building and increased trust that results in more transactions etc). There are some interesting ways of leveraging these which we would not like to discuss publicly as yet. But the issue still is: it will always be free for desktops (personal or business).

Melih

Fair enough, out of interest is comodo listed, so that if one likes the products and company then one can actually buy stock in the company?

[Melih]

What did disappoint me with Comodo was the discussion in Wilders between Melth and Stem. In the end Melth lost patience with Stem and walked away. Stem however was correct in identifying a problem which was also mentioned here.

At that point I lost confidence in the f/w and decided not to even d/l it.

I would like to know if this issue has been resolved and to see the point verified by someone like Stem.

DG05

I tried to spend as much time with Stem as possible. However, it was very difficult to have a discussion on an ever changing discussion point. His first statement he made was: CPF did not have SPI. This was wrong. And then discussion kept moving to different topics. You can't deny that I spent long enough discussing that subject with him and he is yet to admit that he was wrong in making that blanket statement that "CPF does not have SPI". 

I have no problem talking, helping, working together with people testing, finding bugs, trying to improve CPF as long as possible. However I find it unproductive to work with people who make blanket statements, wrongly so, without fully analysing the product. I have no problem people asking questions whether it has SPI or not, I have no problem people saying hey guys I ran this test and this is what I am getting, what gives?. I have a huge problem people making a blanket statement without full and due attention. 

thanks

Melih

[Melih]

Fair enough, out of interest is comodo listed, so that if one likes the products and company then one can actually buy stock in the company?

Not yet!
:-)

Melih

[Júštiñ™]

Hi,

Ok I think I understand what Comodo is trying to do.

1. Offer free security tools to get the average user to trust the internet so they will shop online.
2. Average user begins to trust going online and having good security tools will begin to shop online.
3. Average user begins to shop online and so do others.
4. More people begin to shop online so more online shops open.
5. These new online shops will need verification to be safe so Comodo sells the new online shop verification.
6. Comodo makes money selling verification.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Melih]

Hi,

Ok I think I understand what Comodo is trying to do.

1. Offer free security tools to get the average user to trust the internet so they will shop online.
2. Average user begins to trust going online and having good security tools will begin to shop online.
3. Average user begins to shop online and so do others.
4. More people begin to shop online so more online shops open.
5. These new online shops will need verification to be safe so Comodo sells the new online shop verification.
6. Comodo makes money selling verification.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

7)whose certification do you trust online if not Comodo who is securiing your PC
8)Building the Comodo brand so that it will be most recognised on Internet which will get online retailers to choose our services for certification because users will recognise us more than others as they use our products
9)Comodo will have a huge brand name
10)Comodo will have a  user base that it can introduce new products to (we like to innovate and we need users for these innovations:-).
11) As a company full of techies : Pure pleasure of seeing millions use our products to secure their desktop.

[Júštiñ™]

So assuming everything goes as planned, Comodo will spend a lot of money to start it but in the end Comodo will gain millions of paying customers.

[Tags:]