The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

- Henry Ford (1863 – 1947), founder of the Ford Motor Company.

ECIJA is an unusual law firm. To almost everyone they are not a reference but “the” reference firm in Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) and Information Security. Their list of awards in these areas speaks for itself. However, what not everyone knows is that this avowed focus on TMT is not a mere declaration of intent or marketing posturing, but has a real impact on the company. As an example, their team is made up of 50% technologists and 50% lawyers. It is this company DNA that allows them to tackle complex projects involving technical and legal angles, at a high level of quality that has earned them the success they enjoy today.

We believe ECIJA is an ideal partner and that this agreement is both a recognition and a reinforcement of the Tractis platform and the level it has attained. On the one hand, it strengthens our service offering, especially for those clients making an intensive use of authentication and signature methods offering assurance levels, and on the other hand, gives us the opportunity delve deeper in the development of new solutions and explore new uses of our technology hand in hand with one of the top experts in the industry.

As the number of services we offer increases, it becomes increasingly evident the need to organize them so we can communicate, as clear as possible, the value of each service.

The main page of our new website offers you a summary of all our services. You will see there that each “Product Family” and each “Product” have their own section.

Today we are launching the new website for Tractis Contracts. There you will find a wealth of additional information, both in English and Spanish, about our most veteran service. From a description of the main characteristics, to a tour describing the most important features, different integration methods to add Tractis Contracts to your website and pricing.

We encourage you to visit and share with us any questions or suggestions for improvement.

From today you can also visit the Tractis commercial website in English. All you have to do is to use the language selector you will find on the top right corner of some pages (see image below) or the one at the bottom of all pages.

As we mentioned in November, when bringing out the English version of the Tractis Terms and Policies, we are working to have full multi-language functionality, not just for our products, but also for our commercial website and other marketing materials. Likewise we are working to expand the information and make more of languages available on our website.

Any comment or suggestion for improvement will be most welcome.

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

- The First Circle (1968). Chapter 17. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

We have started our translation work with the legal documentation. Starting today, you can see the following documents, in Spanish and English:

• Terms of use: Spanish | English.
• Legal notice: Spanish | English.
• Privacy Policy: Spanish | English.
• Validation Policy: Spanish | English.
• Timestamping Policy: Spanish | English.
• Long Term Archive Policy: Spanish | English.

Soon, we will be enabling English translations for the rest of our commercial web site.

- Enrique V. Act IV. Scene III. William Shakespeare.

The number of free readers that you will get varies with the Plan you contract:

• Basic Plan (9,99 €/month): 1 courtesy reader.
• Startup Plan (49 €/month): 3 courtesy readers.
• Business Plan (199 €/month): 10 courtesy readers.
• Enterprise Plan (599 €/month): 30 courtesy readers.

This promotion applies only to new Plans and is limited to one Reader Pack per client and Plan. The reader model you will receive will be the Tractis Slim Reader , a reader compatible with all operating systems, ultra slim design and with an extremely low error rate (0,07%). The procedure for getting the readers is simple: once you contract your monthly subscription Plan, you will get an email with a link to place your order and enter the address where you want your courtesy readers delivered. You will receive them within 24-48 hours.

As always, there is no time commitment to the Plan. You may cancel when you want. For example, it is perfectly acceptable to contract your Plan just to try it, get the free readers and discontinue it the next month. Easy, immediate and no questions asked.

We are aware that, in many cases, the value of the readers exceeds the first month fee. No problem. We are confident that, once you experience the advantages of operating on-line, with zero paperwork, zero to and from, zero queuing and zero waiting, you will not go back.

We encourage you to try the Tractis Plans. You will get everything you need to start benefiting from the DNIe, using the most advanced e-commerce platform and without risking anything.

We began with the opening of the Tractis Store, our on-line store. Next came the offering of readers at heavily discounted prices to political initiatives and start-ups. Today we take things one step forward by facilitating the acquisition of readers at low cost.

Discover the new Tractis “Reader Packs”

As from today your business or association can acquire “reader packs” on the Tractis Store and obtain free readers with every purchase.

We have started with two reader packs: the 10+1 Pack and the 100+20 Pack. Obviously, you can keep on buying readers one by one at a price of €19,99, VAT and express courier delivery included.

10+1 Pack

With every purchase of a 10 Tractis Slim Readers Pack (€199,90) you get 1 free reader.

This represents a unit cost of €18,17 per reader, or 1 free reader for every 10 bought.

100+20 Pack

With every purchase of a 100 Tractis Slim Readers Pack (€1999,00) you get 20 free readers.

This represents a unit cost of €16,65 per reader, or 1 free reader for every 5 bought.

As with every other item in the Tractis store, the new “Reader Packs” are compatible with all operating systems, their prices include VAT and delivery and are sent by express courier within 24 hours.

Tractis ProBono grows

We are very happy with the feed-back received and the way ProBono has been received and used for political issues. We have decided to broaden Tractis ProBono reach to include not just political initiatives but, also, startups.

Thanks to Tractis ProBono, as of today, any startup can benefit from the free use of all Tractis services and acquire intelligent card readers at discount prices or completely for free.

What kind of businesses can benefit?

The definition of a “startup” given by Steve Blank is probably the best: “a temporary organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model“. Although almost perfect conceptually, it is not very useful for us to determine in practice what kind of businesses can enjoy Tractis services for free and which cannot. We need to settle down on some criterion that does not lend itself to argument.

For Tractis ProBono purposes, we have decided to consider a “startup” any business with less than 10 employees and yearly revenue under € 100,000, regardless of their date of establishment.

Rights and obligations

The benefits of joining Tractis ProBono have been mention already: services and readers discounted or free.

As opposed to the rest of Tractis users, startups admitted under Tractis ProBono are not subject to Tractis reasonable use Policy, they can use Tractis services for free without limit. This means, Users, APIs and unlimited transactions.

The obligations consist of respecting the Tractis attribution Policy and giving Tractis permission to use the name of your startup as a reference.

You can find the updated text regulating from now Tractis ProBono on the Tractis ProBono terms.

How do I enroll?

If you meet the requirements to participate in Tractis ProBono, the enrollment process is fast and simple. A legal representative of your business, or the entrepreneur behind the project (should the company not be formed yet) has to complete and sign electronically the “Tractis ProBono Application”.

Once the application has been reviewed and checked that the conditions for participation are met, we from Tractis will sign electronically the document also, so it becomes binding for both parties.

Final words

It is for us a pleasure to extend the ProBono program to promote and facilitate entrepreneurship.

Crisis or no crisis, the number of electronic certificates does not stop growing worldwide. Just last week Spain announced that it had passed the 29 million mark of DNIe issued. With all that is befalling us these days, we think it would be a great shame that entrepreneurs with ideas for new and innovative services using electronic certification could not make them happen for lack of resources.

Not a single one of these ideas should remain untried.