Availability of Digital Identity and Addressing, Authentication
And Authorization, and Transaction Services Reduces Friction of Automating Key
Business Processes
BEA, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and webMethods Among Major
Web Services Players Supporting VeriSign Digital Trust Services Initiative
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of digital trust services,
today unveiled its Digital Trust Services framework for enabling trusted Web
Services and other high-value e-Business applications. The open
standards-based approach, coupled with a multiyear technology roadmap,
provides seamless interfaces to VeriSign's digital identity and addressing,
authentication and authorization, and transaction services, enabling
enterprises to automate business processes through the use of Web Services and
other emerging technologies.
The Digital Trust Services framework is supported by leading Web Services
providers, including: BEA Systems, Inc; Hewlett-Packard Company; IBM Corp.;
Microsoft Corp.; Oracle Corp; Sun Microsystems, Inc. and webMethods, Inc. It
also provides open application programming interfaces (APIs), developer
tools and a flexible service provider platform to assist developers, value
added resellers (VARs), systems integrators (SIs) and large-scale service
providers in delivering trusted solutions to enterprises and end users. (See
related releases, issued today, from other supporting companies, including
ActivCard; Grand Central Networks, Inc.; Kontiki; Neoteris; Phoenix
Technologies Ltd.; and USA.NET, Inc. and Yodlee).
"Just as the integration of public key infrastructure (PKI) technology
into Web browsers and servers helped unleash the first wave of e-commerce
seven years ago, today's announcement sets the stage for the next wave in
trusted e-Business -- Web Services," said Stratton Sclavos, president and CEO
of VeriSign. "Embedding interfaces to our digital trust services into major
platforms reduces the friction that enterprises typically face in automating
internal and external business processes, enabling them to capture
significant gains in productivity and efficiency."
Gartner Group defines Web Services as software components that can
interact with one another dynamically via standard Internet technologies,
making it possible for enterprises to build bridges between IT systems that
would otherwise require extensive development efforts. The ultimate goal of
Web Services is to automate business processes for activities like currency
conversion, travel booking, quote/bid requests, language translation,
medical and insurance claim processing, and shipping services.
"Trust and security have been barriers to adoption of every major IT
initiative over the past 20 years, including the Web, email, and
client-server architectures. The same challenge exists for Web Services,"
said Daryl Plummer, group vice president and research group director at
Gartner Inc. "Moving Web Services to the next level of acceptance and
adoption really depends on how well the industry integrates digital trust
services into the supporting infrastructure, both at the network and
application levels."
VeriSign's Digital Trust Services framework makes it easier for
enterprises to deploy trusted Web Services and other high-value applications
through:
* Native Integration with Leading Web Services Platforms -- Enterprise
customers will be able to access thoroughly tested interfaces to VeriSign's
digital trust services from platform-based Web Services and applications.
These interfaces are built on open standards, such as XKMS (XML Key
Management Standard) and SAML (Security Assertions Markup Language),
providing enterprises the option to access multiple services and providers
without any code changes to their applications.
* Open, Standards-based APIs and Developer Tools -- For enterprises that
need to integrate digital trust services into in-house applications,
VeriSign's Digital Trust Services framework provides a comprehensive suite of
APIs and developer tools, including pre-built connectors, class libraries,
tutorials, case examples and complete documentation.
* Service Provider Platform -- This flexible platform enables large-scale
service providers, systems integrators and value-added resellers to easily
integrate digital trust services to create value-added offerings. The
platform supports Web-based provisioning of VeriSign digital trust services,
user lifecycle management, administration, customer support and consolidated
billing and reporting. For instance, USA.NET, the Global eMessaging Service
Provider, has combined VeriSign's managed PKI services with its hosted
Microsoft Exchange 2000 service to deliver a secure messaging solution to
Fortune 500 enterprises.
In conjunction with this announcement, VeriSign today also detailed its
multi-year development roadmap for its Digital Trust Services framework. In
addition to Web Services and other e-Business applications, the roadmap is
designed to enable future integrated trust services, such as global
validation, authenticated payments and trusted IP/telephony services. These
services will be delivered over VeriSign's highly scalable, global directory
and signaling infrastructure, which currently handles more than 5 billion
Web transactions per day. White papers detailing the Digital Trust Services
framework and the first phase of the technology roadmap are available at
http://www.verisign.com/spotlight/02/0218/presskit.pdf .
"Secure, standards-based Web services make it significantly easier for our
customers to automate their cross-enterprise business processes," said
Mary Ann Davidson, chief security officer at Oracle. "Our partnership with
VeriSign underscores our commitment to making trust and security an integral
part of Web Services."
"Interoperability and trust are key to speeding the adoption and success
of Web services," said Arvind Krishna, vice president of security products,
Tivoli Software, IBM Software Group. "We have made good progress on the
interoperability front by forming cross-industry initiatives and by
embracing security standards, such as SAML and XKMS. On the trust front,
integrating Tivoli secure access management technology into VeriSign's
digital trust services and working to integrate VeriSign's digital trust
services into open standards-based Web Services platforms, like IBM
WebSphere, is a major step in the right direction."
"A Holy Grail for Web Services is getting to a point where developers
don't have to worry about integrating trust into the plumbing because it's
already there," said Adam Bosworth, senior vice president of engineering at
BEA Systems. "We are working closely with VeriSign to greatly simplify
standards-based access to digital trust services."
"By providing tight integration of VeriSign's trust services with
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft and VeriSign are making it easier than
ever for developers to create Web Services that help enterprises transact with
confidence across trust boundaries," said Tom Button, vice president,
developer tools division at Microsoft. "Today's announcement builds on a
constructive effort between our two companies to make trust an integral part
of digital communications and commerce."
"VeriSign Digital Trust Services, running on the number one operating
environment for network servers, the Solaris Operating Environment, and the
award-winning iPlanet Web Services infrastructure -- both key elements of
Sun ONE -- can help our joint customers deploy Web Services quickly and
securely," said Marge Breya, vice president of Sun ONE at Sun Microsystems,
Inc. "Interoperability is key to Web Services and a core competency of Sun.
We are working with VeriSign and other leading companies on evolving open
standards, such as SAML and XKMS, to enable the delivery of open and secure
Web Services."
"webMethods and VeriSign are committed to providing customers with the
most secure and reliable solutions for streamlining business processes within
and across the enterprise," said Kim Trudel, vice president, enterprise Web
Services, webMethods, Inc. "Web Services promise to deliver companies with
new methods for leveraging existing IT systems to effectively manage
business processes."
In addition to leading platform and service providers, VeriSign is working
with a number of customers to make trust a central part of Web Services
implementations.
MedUnite Inc., an independent full-service technology firm founded by
seven of the nation's leading health plans to promote the evolution of
healthcare transactions from an inefficient, paper-based system to an
economical, real-time Internet-based connectivity tool for the healthcare
community, plans to integrate VeriSign's Healthcare Authentication Services
into its transaction platform. The VeriSign services will provide MedUnite
with real-time validation of physician identities, enabling trusted
communications for physicians doing business online.
"MedUnite is determined to reduce the unacceptably high cost of healthcare
administration caused by antiquated paper-based systems," said
Sheila Schweitzer, executive vice president and chief operations officer for
MedUnite. "Working with VeriSign, we'll be able to quickly achieve the first
step of this process -- quickly verifying the identity of physicians to allow
them rapid access to online patient information with optimum protection and
security."
Availability
VeriSign's Web Services toolkit is available today and can be downloaded
from http://www.xmltrustcenter.org . To learn more about VeriSign Digital
Trust Services, please visit VeriSign Booth 615 during RSA Conference 2002
in San Jose, Calif.
About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. is the leading provider of digital trust
services that enable everyone, everywhere to engage in commerce and
communications with confidence. VeriSign's digital trust services create a
trusted environment through three core offerings- name, security and
transaction services -- powered by a global infrastructure that manages more
than 5 billion network connections and transactions a day. Additional news
and information about the company is available at http://www.verisign.com
http://www.verisign.com .
Statements in this announcement other than historical data and information
constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of
the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of
1934. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause
VeriSign's actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied
by such forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties
include, among others: VeriSign's limited operating history under its
current business structure; the risk that the VeriSign and Illuminet
businesses will not be integrated successfully and unanticipated costs of
such integration; uncertainty of future revenue and profitability and
potential fluctuations in quarterly operating results; failure of the
combined company to retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and
other employees; failure of the combined company to manage its growth and
the difficulty of successfully managing a larger, more geographically
dispersed organization; failure of the combined company to successfully
manage relationships with customers, suppliers and strategic customers;
network outages, network capacity constraints or security breaches; failure
of the combined company's customers to accept new services or to continue
using the products and services of the combined company; and competition in
the various markets serviced by the combined company. More information about
potential factors that could affect the company's business and financial
results is included in VeriSign's filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, especially in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2000, Registration Statement on Form S-4 filed on
October 10, 2001 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended
March 31, June 30, 2001 and September 30, 2001. VeriSign undertakes no
obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of
this press release. VeriSign is a registered trademark of VeriSign, Inc.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE VeriSign, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.verisign.com
Company News On-Call:
http://www.prnewswire.com/gh/cnoc/comp/129373.html
CONTACT:
media, Dave Berkowitz, +1-650-426-4470, or
dberkowitz@verisign.com, or investors, Katie Ochsner,
+1-650-426-3512, or kochsner@verisign.com, both of VeriSign, Inc.
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