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Technology Stocks : VeriSign (VRSN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jef saunders who wrote (897)	2/28/2000 10:18:00 AM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1285

I am not sure which patent you are referring to, but the RSA patent on encryption is due to expire sometime this year. So, if nothing else, they won't have to pay royalties! -- Security Dynamics, VeriSign join forces By Jim Kerstetter, PC Week Online August 31, 1999 5:52 PM ET Security Dynamics Technologies Inc. is getting a little help from VeriSign Inc. Or is it the other way around? This morning, the two security companies announced a joint software and services offering that combines Security Dynamic's Keon public key infrastructure with VeriSign's OnSite PKI outsourcing service. "We've focused on out-of-the-box components," said Stratton Sclavos, CEO of VeriSign in Mountain View, Calif.. "The Security Dynamics people have focused much more on legacy applications." In particular, while VeriSign has focused on improving the scale and corporate focus of its PKI service, Security Dynamics has focused on integrating with legacy applications such as ERP suites. The combination of VeriSign services and Security Dynamics software will be available within the next two weeks, company officials said. Security 'synergy' It's the latest example of "synergy" for two companies from the same family tree of security. VeriSign, one of the first PKI vendors to go public, was founded more than three years ago as an offshoot of RSA Data Security Inc. Not long after, RSA was acquired by Security Dynamics in Bedford, Mass. Both companies -- or all three, depending on how you look at it -- are at a crossroads. After struggling for several years, VeriSign appears to be improving financially as the market for PKI services is finally starting to catch on in corporate America. Security Dynamics suffered through several rough quarters last year, but its fortunes seem to be improving with a record $51.8 million in revenue in its most recent quarter. As for RSA, it has long been the most fashionable boutique for the computer encryption community. Since it was founded, it has relied on revenues from its intellectual property, encryption algorithms. But the patent on the namesake RSA public key runs out next year, and RSA CEO Jim Bidzos has been positioning the company "upstream" over the last two years, relying on sales of encryption software tool kits and now the Keon PKI that was developed with parent company Security Dynamics. But Keon itself is technology that's come home to roost. Its core certificate engine is based on technology licensed about two yeas ago from VeriSign. The VeriSign technology, by the way, is largely based on the RSA public key and PKI research that was first done at RSA. "We've got a strong binding between the two products," said Sclavos. zdnet.com