Holy Grail market analysis . . . .
Buck's last Netscape reference seemed to have helped me put together a personal market overview on the biometric software market, and how IDX may be planning to put its strategy together.
This is the most important, and most interesting, market. It hasn't arrived yet, but when it does it could be massive. For biometrics to be accepted on the Internet and intranets (local area networks, like internal corporate or government systems) it has to be inexpensive and easy to operate. NRID has a deal with Keytronics, a keyboard manufacturer, to put a scanner on a keyboard. It costs, I think, $200 or $300. IDX at the moment has only Touchlan, costing $500 or more per work station -- and a tie-in to Oracle. Although NRID has a potential market advantage on IDX in this field due to price and ease of use, IDX technology has privacy advantages over the NRID technology. But I don't believe this PC-based approach is the direction to go, and further, I don't believe that IDX is ultimately going there. (IDX has no keyboard scanner in the works, according to the IDX rep I spoke with the other day at the Computer Security show.)
I think IDX bought BAT because of the Netscape plug-in it was developing. Further, J. Saf's post 5123 on the Holy Grail indicates that IDX (certainly through BAT) is working a network-based Java-based applet approach with both Microsoft and Netscape. Allowing a network server to supply the IDX algorithm to the end user, rather than trying to put it in a box on each person's desk, can commoditize this market faster than anything. It will leapfrog Touchlan and NRID's Keytronic tie-in, and any subsequent improvements on these products. (This may explain why the Oracle effort is slow going -- it is not the most elegant possible solution.) I think it also would trump the recent GTE announcement, since it should be cheaper at the desktop and would have network acceptance from the big guys, Microsoft and Netscape.
I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that all it will require is a keyboard-based finger scanner with the cheapest and best technology (say, the Lucent chip) to communicate with the network server. (It may need a smart card reader, as well, for personal verification, especially for initial enrollment in order to prevent identity theft at enrollment -- let's hear from someone who understands this a bit better). This is a cheaper, simpler, much more mass produced universal solution than PC-based Touchlan equivalents. It will also bring a great deal of consumer acceptance and a quicker market than the present technology.
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