Hometown boy makes good:
"FORMER LOUISVILLIAN Randy Fowler says he has a fingerprint reader that will eliminate those passwords and numbers you need to log on to a computer or to use an automated teller machine.
"There is 'serious password overload' in U.S. business, he said, with 800 million computers in use and 100 million new ones added each year.
"Fowler is a pioneer in fingerprint reader technology. His work has put him at the helm of an $80-million-a-year company that almost owns the biometrics authentication market, a market that analysts say will reach $1 billion by 2001.
"His Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Identix Inc. already has more than 500 employees in more than 50 countries. He expects to find great opportunities in ecommerce, ebanking and other applications where it is important to know for sure who is on both ends of a transaction.
"And he thinks that market will make Identix a $500 million company within two or three years.
'''We're accelerating in volume even as we speak,' he said last week. Fowler grew up on a truck farm on Bells Lane and graduated from Valley High School in 1957. His mother was a longtime General Electric Co. assembly-line employee.
'''My grandfather thought I was useless because I didn't like to plow,' he said.
"FOWLER DID LIKE math, though. That and jobs at the A&P grocery and other places got him through engineering school at the University of Louisville.
"He eventually added a doctorate in applied mechanics from Stanford University. . . .
"By 1982 technology was improving and he was able to get venture capital to start his own company again. He got $ 250,000 that year, and $2 million the next.
"When venture capitalists dragged their feet later, he took the company public, against predictions that he couldn't, in 1985. . . .
"Identix sells $ 35,000 machines to the police, and it has placed them with major departments all over the country. That market still is the largest part of its business.
"But Fowler said it is fingerprint controlled access - to everything from buildings to databases - that is just now taking off.
"Banks in Australia and Africa use Identix devices to clear access to ATMs. Identix has time-and-attendance machines - replacing time clocks - in 500 Australian Woolworth stores, keeping track of 100,000 employees.
"THE TECHNOLOGY keeps getting better, he said. If a person cuts a finger, another finger, previously scanned, can be substituted. 'We can tell the difference between a finger and a picture of a finger, a real finger and an artificial finger, and a live finger and a dead finger.''
"A person who is being forced by a robber to gain access to a machine can use another, pre-designated finger to trigger a silent alarm.
"Fowler says the size and complexity of the U.S. market may delay fingerprint access to ATMs here. But he said the time-and-attendance business is ripe for the application, and Identix officers are working with time clock manufacturers.
"Identix technology already is in some home computer equipment. Compaq sells a fingerprint-access device as a peripheral with its machines, and KeyTronic Corp. is building the devices into keyboards and mice.
"Identix signed an agreement last week with Motorola, which is concerned about security for cell phones, among other things.
"There is some competition to be contended with. Jackie Fenn, vice president and research director of advanced technologies for Gartner Group, said the field is crowded, in fact, though she conceded that few competitors actually are shipping products.
"'We don't feel much pressure,' Fowler said. Estimates that Identix has about 85 percent of the biometrics market probably are close to right, he said. The worldwide lead in the market, he said, 'is definitely ours to lose.
"What competition there is seems to be shooting for the identification hardware market, he said, while Identix is trying to drive the hardware price down so it can make money on software.
"FOWLER THINKS all computer hardware will get cheaper. Inexpensive terminals will be found in hotel rooms and on the backs of airline seats, he said, and operating systems and software will exist only on the Internet, to be accessed through fingerprint clearance.
"Keeping valuable information on a laptop that you're carrying through an airport is worse than keeping your money under a mattress, he said.
. . .
"Fowler said he spends a lot of time on Wall Street now - and likes it. But he said Wall Street hasn't realized yet how applicable biometrics will be to e-commerce."
(From the Louisville Courier-Journal of May 30, 1999)
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That passage I italicized is revealing. Fowler and IDX are trying to control the software platform for bio-ID, and hardware is only a means to that end. Also, confirmation on the MOT cell phone interest, news on the number of employees. |
