PKI Forum News

PKI Forum and EEMA Collaborate to Push Forward Secure E-business in Europe

SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 19, 2000 - The PKI Forum, a multi-vendor industry consortium created to accelerate the adoption of Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology and PKI-based solutions as the trusted foundation for secure e-business applications, today announced that EEMA, the European Forum for Electronic Business, has signed a mutual reciprocal "Liaison Membership" Agreement with the PKI Forum to create awareness of PKI requirements for secure e-business across Europe and to assist vendors with PKI interoperability.

Frank Jorissen, Vice Chairman of EEMA, and Deputy Vice President of Utimaco Safeware AG, signed the agreement between the two organizations with Lisa Pretty, Executive Director of the PKI Forum, at last week's PKI Forum meeting in Montr�l. Mr Jorissen said EEMA was "delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with the PKI Forum and to pull together their respective resources in developing a global, effective and reliable PKI solution for business.".

Mr Jorissen said,. "In order for there to be a true e-business, users must have confidence that there are systems in place which guarantee security of their data and the identity of the sender and receiver. These systems must ideally be accepted and supported by all vendors across the Globe."

The PKI Forum, -- an international, not-for-profit, multi-vendor and end-user alliance whose purpose is to accelerate the adoption of Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) products and services -- has recently set begun a campaign for co-operation amongst other key organizations involved in developing security in order to accelerate adoption of secure e-commerce by business.

"The PKI Forum is excited to be working with EEMA. By working together, we will be able to accomplish much more than we would as two independent organizations", commented Lisa Pretty, Executive Director of the PKI Forum. "The PKI fForum is developing liaison relationships in various regions around the globe and EEMA is clearly a leader in Europe.".

EEMA has recently put forward an ambitious project to the European Commission, the "PKI Challenge" for funding, which will be Europe's largest PKI Interoperability project. This project is open to up to 25 different PKI technologies and to an unlimited number of parties that wish to participate without engaging into the actual interoperability testing. Thanks to the European Commission funding, the project will have a low entry threshold and professional management and promotion. It is proposed that the two groups will work together on the PKI Challenge. The primary goal of the Challenge is to foster the conditions under which a global secure environment can be created for the conduct of electronic business. This environment will be based upon the use of heterogeneous PKI products and services.

The PKI Challenge is a twenty-four month project, which will be launched in January 2001. The pre-launch promotion will start at the ISSE2000 Conference (Information Security Solutions Europe 2000) in Barcelona 27-29 September 2000 (visit www.eema.org/isse).

About EEMA - The European Forum for Electronic Business
EEMA, formed in 1987, provides a neutral forum for companies involved in electronic business and commerce. There are 250 pan-European member companies across 20 countries, from large corporate users and suppliers to consultants and government institutions. Through its interest groups (Unified Messaging, e-Commerce, Directory, Users, e-Business Strategy, Knowledge Management and ECAF / Security), publications and conferences EEMA has been instrumental in moving European business towards trading electronically. EEMA also demonstrates to members how they can gain commercial advantage by the early adoption of new technologies and techniques. For more information visit www.eema.org

About the PKI Forum
The PKI Forum is an international, not-for-profit, multi-vendor and end-user alliance whose purpose is to accelerate the adoption of Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) products and services. Baltimore Technologies, Entrust Technologies, IBM, Microsoft and RSA Security Inc. founded the forum in December 1999 and since that time have welcomed PKI vendors, application developers, system integrators and end users to participate in Forum activities. Current interoperability initiatives underway at the forum include CMP interoperability, CA-CA interoperability with a focus on cross certification and application certificate interoperability. Founded in December 1999, the PKI Forum has been growing at a rapid pace and currently has over 80 members including PKI vendors, application developers, system integrators and end users. Members of the PKI Forum are working on a number of initiatives include PKI Tutorials, policy review, interoperability testing and a best practices white book. The PKI Forum advocates industry cooperation and market awareness to enable organizations to understand and exploit the value of PKI in their e-business applications. For more information about the PKI Forum visit http://www.oasis-pki.org

# # #

ABOUT | MEMBERS | JOIN | NEWS | EVENTS | TECH PROCESS | TECH COMMITTEES | OASIS NETWORK