Certicom's Industry Leading ECC Provides End-to-End Protection from Secure Corporate Intranet to Handheld Devices
Internet World Wireless 2001, NEW YORK, NY - February 22, 2001 - Collective Communications Corporation today announced an agreement with Certicom (Nasdaq: CERT; TSE: CIC), a leading provider of e-business security, to provide end-to-end security for Collective's leading-edge ePDA wireless access solution. Collective's ePDA platform technology gives mobile professionals using Internet-connected handhelds secure remote access to enterprise applications and data residing on their corporate Intranet. Collective has licensed Certicom's advanced Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) which encrypts ePDA's two-way transmission to protect users' information. By utilizing Certicom's strong and efficient ECC security, Collective will provide wireless solutions that provide the highest levels of confidentiality yet meet the performance demands of ePDA users.
"We are very pleased to be adding Certicom's security capabilities to our proven ePDA mobile technology," said Atul Chowdhry, CEO of Collective. "Given the deployment of more and more business critical applications out to mobile devices, rigorous security features are essential for access to critical corporate data. Through our partnership with Certicom, we can now provide our customers the protection required in today's operating environment."
ePDA extends the reach of enterprise applications to any Internet-connected device including mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptops. The Collective-Certicom relationship extends ePDA into multiple vertical markets including healthcare, financial services, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), hospitality, manufacturing, retail, distribution and sales. Using ePDA, mobile workers have the ability to query and update, in real-time, critical information such as contact management, email, chat or any other enterprise data residing within corporate databases. During the transmission of critical information, all of the company's data is securely encrypted for confidentiality.
Certicom's Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and One-Pass Protocol (OPP) technologies will allow ePDA to operate extremely efficiently on handheld devices and cell phones. ECC delivers the highest level of security using public keys that are dramatically smaller than similar strength keys created using the RSA algorithm. The use of smaller keys delivers tremendous performance advantages for mobile and wireless environments, resulting in faster processing speed, dramatically improved bandwidth utilization, reduced storage requirements and decreased battery requirements. Certicom's ECC and other technologies like Java, allow ePDA to continue as an open platform and OS independent solution that is both flexible and scalable.
Users of ePDA benefit from responsive PDA applications because Collective's software runs natively on the handheld device. Since only data and not the entire interface is transmitted, native applications are faster, provide a more efficient user interface and utilize bandwidth better than web-based applications. Certicom's efficient security technology allows Collective to deliver information securely to wireless PDA applications, without significantly slowing the application.
"We are pleased to be working with Collective, a provider of a cutting-edge solution, ePDA, which extends corporate data to users of handhelds," said Prakash Panjwani, Certicom vice president, business development. "Certicom's ECC technology provides an efficient security backbone for ePDA, allowing users to perform highly-confidential transactions in a wireless setting."
About Collective Communications Corporation
Collective Communications Corporation is a Maryland-based software firm specializing in wireless technologies. By providing an "office in the palm of your hand," professionals gain access to enterprise datastores and corporate Intranets from handheld devices. Collective markets its products through strategic channel partners and resellers. For more information, please contact David B. Feldman, director of marketing and strategic alliances, at 301-588-8550, ext. 19 or e-mail him at dave@collective.com. Please also visit the company website at http://www.collective.com/.
About Certicom
Certicom is a leading provider of information security software and services, specializing in solutions for mobile e-business. The company's products and services are specifically designed to address the challenges imposed by a wireless data environment. Certicom's solutions incorporate its proprietary encryption technology and are based on industry standards for information security that utilize public key cryptography. Certicom's products are currently licensed to more than 150 customers including ePocrates, Inc., Motorola, Inc., NeoPoint, Inc., Nortel Networks, Openwave Systems, Inc., Palm, Inc., Pixo, Inc., QUALCOMM, Inc., Research In Motion Ltd. and Sony International (Europe) GmbH. Certicom's headquarters and worldwide sales and marketing operations are based in the Silicon Valley in Hayward. For more information, visit Certicom's Web site at http://www.certicom.com/.
Certicom is a trademark of Certicom Corp. All other companies and products listed herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Except for historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Factors that might cause a difference include, but are not limited to, those relating to the acceptance of mobile and wireless devices and the continued growth of e-commerce and m-commerce (mobile e-commerce), the increase of the demand for mutual authentication in m-commerce transactions, the acceptance of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) technology as an industry standard, the market acceptance of our principle products and sales of our customer's products, the impact of competitive products and technologies, the possibility of our products infringing patents and other intellectual property of third parties, and costs of product development. Certicom will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential factors that could affect Certicom's financial results is included in the documents Certicom files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities including Certicom's current Annual Report on Form 10-K.
For further information, please contact:
David Feldman | Lorraine Kauffman |
Collective Communications Corporation | Certicom Corporation |
301-588-8550, ext. 19 | 510-780-5417 |
dave@collective.com | Ikauffman@certicom.com |