Alacris Announces Strategic Partnership with Axalto

Alacris Inc., a leading developer of certificate management and identity assurance software products, and Axalto, a leading provider of microprocessor cards, today announced they have entered into a strategic business partnership that offers customers a best-of-breed smart card and identity assurance management solution for enterprise Microsoft environments - both now and in the future. The foundation of this partner relationship is built upon a successful track record of Alacris and Axalto working closely together over the last two years to provide full interoperability between Alacris idNexus for Microsoft Identity Assurance Management System and Axaltos Cyberflex smart card products - and helping enterprise Windows customers cost effectively deploy integrated smart card and digital certificate based identity solutions. This partnership comes at a time when smart cards are increasingly becoming an accepted and vital link in the chain of trust for secure identity authentication. At Microsoft IT Forum 2004, the companys premier European conference for information technology (IT) professionals, Bill Gates predicted that smart cards would be a key factor in eliminating dependency on passwords and reducing the costs and complexities associated with identity management. The combination of Alacris and Axalto product offerings fulfills this vision by providing a single management system integrating smart card platforms, Windows 2003 Certificate Authority and Active Directory. Under this agreement, both parties will work closely together to further extend the range of Axalto authentication technologies supported by idNexus to include smart card applets, one time password solutions and the Cryptoflex .NET smart card - as well as increasing joint marketing and sales activities. idNexus is an identity assurance management system focusing on providing increased flexibility, maximized trust, well-planned workflow processes and robust lifecycle management functionality associated with digital identities using advanced authentication technologies including digital certificates and smart cards.