The acquisition spree that resulted in VeriSign purchasing LightSurf seems to have cost the former president, Stratton Sclavos, his job. “Unfocused and excessive” describes the buying spree. To correct, the board named Bill Roper as President. Evidently the board seems to think the best action is to divest itself of LightSurf, and other areas of the company.
VeriSign to sell business units, return to basics
Little wonder. VeriSign’s “core” business of certificates, DNS administration, credit card charges clearing, cell phone charges clearing, etc, is a very high margin business. The revenue/employee is very high. Seems LightSurf’s PictureMail business is more of a professional services business performing custom engineering for a small set of customers. The revenue/employee is much, much lower. Easy to see how the LightSurf business doesn’t fit in the VeriSign model.
