VeriSign Inc. and Network Associates Inc. today announced an alliance to provide cross-product support and promotion for their respective digital certificate-based security solutions.
The companies said that by combining their technologies businesses will be able to have a choice of certificate formats when deploying secure transactions via the Internet, including e-mail exchange, the creation of virtual private networks, and providing secure access to corporate information.
In addition, Network Associates and VeriSign said customers can now develop combined public key infrastructure (PKI) solutions designed to cover the entire lifecycle of certificates, from issuance and usage through renewal, expiration, or revocation.
The first commercial collaborative solution between the two companies will be interoperable between the Gauntlet GVPN product and VeriSign OnSite for IPSEC, slated for availability in the third quarter of this year.
By the fourth quarter VeriSign’s OnSite service and toolkit will be beefed
up with the ability to issue DSA X.509 certificates as well as RSA X.509
certificates. Also in the works is an updated version of Network
Associates’ Net Tools Secure which will be able to request and employ
either certificate.
“By joining the two largest players in the industry to ensure that our
customers’ security applications are seamlessly compatible, we are fueling the growth of electronic commerce and secure communications on the Internet,” said Peter Watkins, general manager of the Net Tools Secure division at Network Associates, in a statement announcing the collaboration.
“With this partnership, users of Network Associates’ desktop and server encryption applications can simply obtain their choice of digital certificates to establish a fully functional, interoperable PKI through the use of OnSite,” added Stratton Sclavos, president and CEO of VeriSign.
VeriSign OnSite is a digital certificate solution designed to allow businesses to establish themselves as a certificate authority. It is expected to become available for IPSec digital certificates in the third quarter. VeriSign OnSite pricing starts at $4995 for 1000 client certificates.
