Certicom, which focuses on mobile e-business security, is hoping that mobile customers are looking for a nice virtual private network (VPN) for their handheld devices.

The Hayward, Calif.-based company Tuesday unveiled its new movianVPN 2.0, a platform it built on the 8021.11b or Wi-Fi standard.

The new VPN would allow companies to extend critical enterprise applications such as e-mail and customer relationship management (CRM) tools to their mobile workers by connecting to corporate gateways.

But there are risks. A recent IDC report says the market for IT security services including wireless will be a $21 billion marked and triple over the next four years.

"There have been concerns about the inherent security of the networks," says Certicom product development senior vice president Robert Williams. "With Certicom's movianVPN 2.0, mobile professionals can use their handheld devices and confidently utilize 802.11b wireless networks to connect to corporate servers protected by VPN gateways. This breakthrough solution comes at a time when security for 802.11b networks is critical to ensure widescale adoption."

While VPNs have been popular for several years, Williams says movianVPN is the first solution to extend wireless capabilities to the mobile sector by interoperating with a laundry list of existing VPN products.

At this point, movianVPN 2.0 has adding support for VPN gateways by Avaya, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent, NetScreen and Secure Computing as well as popular handheld device platforms including Microsoft Windows Powered Handheld PC 2000 and Pocket PC, PalmOS 3.5 and above and Microsoft's newly launched Pocket PC 2002.

"HP views the convergence of VPNs and mobile devices as a critical issue for the industry," says HP Server Appliances marketing manager Ann Keffer. "Mobile devices emphasize the need to extend VPNs to give remote users secure and reliable access to the corporate network from almost any location."

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So far, movianVPN 2.0 has been tested for interoperability with 802.11b devices from Cisco Systems, HP, Intel, Lucent, Nortel Networks, and Xircom.

In addition to other algorithms, the wireless VPN features support for elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) to get connected fast. Certicom's ECC technology is ideally suited for securing wireless devices that are limited by low processing speed, network bandwidth, and battery power.

Right now movianVPN is available by download from Certicom's website for a 30-day commercial evaluation. Individual licenses start at $29.95 per seat on an annual subscription basis.

The subscription lets the client use any available platform, access to support and the right to all product updates throughout the year. Site licenses start at 10 seats and higher. The VPN is also available through third parties who will bundle the client with their own products.