Intercede Regulatory News (IGP)

Intercede, Oxford Computer Group and Gemalto Announce US Sales Alliance

Industry Leaders Team to Deliver Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Solutions Based on Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM)

Leicestershire, England, and Bellevue, WA, December 7, 2011 - Intercede Group plc, the developer of the Intercede MyID® Identity and Credential Management System and Oxford Computer Group LLC, a Microsoft Gold Partner for Identity and Security Solutions, today announced they have signed a strategic partnership agreement to deliver PIV solutions to non-Federal organizations.

Furthermore, OCG announces today that they have also teamed with Gemalto to extend the scope of this market offering to include the supply of smart card and associated components. Gemalto is already an Intercede partner.

This alliance brings a preconfigured, end-to-end PIV solution to market for enterprises (i.e. state and local governments and critical infrastructure businesses) who want to use the PIV standard (PIV-Interoperable or PIV-Compatible depending on the organizations relationship with Federal Government). The PIV standard is a set of requirements that can be used for organizations external to the Federal Government to create credentials that are based upon a well-defined set of standards from both the technical and the issuance perspective.

The underlying rationale for using PIV is that user names and passwords are vulnerable. News headlines appear on an ever-increasing basis regarding high profile cyber-attacks aiming to penetrate networks, systems, and data. PIV-I offers an effective means for organizations to strengthen their cyber defenses by implementing multifactor authentication thus providing increased identity verification. PIV-I offers a standard based framework from which to combat identity fraud and tampering.

The Intercede MyID Identity and Credential Management System enables organizations to enroll, issue and manage the lifecycle of smart cards, USB authentication devices, PKI certificates, biometrics and other identity credentials. The release of the Intercede MyID Management Agent (MA) for Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 (FIM) enables Intercede MyID to work as a 'plug-in' into FIM. In essence, MyID PIV extends FIM 2010 to include support for PIV-I standard smartcards.

FIM 2010 is an Identity and Access Management platform that provides powerful self-service capabilities for end users, rich administrative tools and enhanced automation for common identity, certificate, and smartcard lifecycle management tasks. With MyID MA for FIM, organizations that rely on Microsoft infrastructure can now take advantage of Intercede MyID to include support for PIV-I smartcards in their defenses against cyber-attack and identity fraud.

Oxford Computer Group (OCG) has 600+ enterprise projects completed and more than 6,000 people trained on Microsoft Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Information Protection. With a wealth of knowledge and a team of experienced consultants and architects, OCG can design, build and deploy complete identity and security solutions quickly.

The benefits to our new partnership is that MyID ensures the credentials are issued to PIV- I or PIV-C standards, MyID MA for FIM leverages the investments that enterprises have made with FIM and OCG can implement the complete end-to-end PIV identity and security solution quickly and cost effectively.

Richard Parris, Intercede Chairman and Chief Executive said; "Oxford Computer Group is an important new partner for Intercede, servicing non-Federal Government clients with a complete end-to-end PIV solution. OCG's choice of Intercede's MyID and MyID MA for FIM to provide a complete identity and security solution allows them to implement a solution much more quickly and effectively than equivalent systems. This opportunity also leverages the installed base of Microsoft FIM clients and OCG is in an excellent position to exploit this market. The addition of Gemalto to the alliance further extends the market reach and sales horsepower behind our joint team"

Marvin Tansley, President of Oxford Computer Group said; "After years of watching this space it is very exciting to work with Intercede's MyID system to deliver an end-to-end PIV solution for non-Federal customers that need to better protect the critical infrastructure for the USA. Using MyID, we are able to deploy a full end-to-end identity and credentialing system in a fraction of the time and cost compared to using a more traditional systems integration approach." 

Calvin Choe, Director of Partner Engineering, Microsoft Corporation said; "Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 enables the automated and rapid provisioning and de-provisioning of user accounts and credentials. Intercede, Oxford Computer Group and Gemalto working together are a great example of how our partner companies are leveraging new features and technology improvements in our products to help joint customers save time and money".

Tom Flynn, Vice President of Sales Online Authentication, of Gemalto North America, said; "Gemalto is the long standing leader in the development of smart card based digital security solutions, having delivered over 25 million PIV-accredited smart cards for both enterprise and government customers. Uniting Gemalto, Intercede and Oxford Computer Group will produce a truly commercial off-the-shelf solution to meet the current and urgent cyber security needs of the nation's critical infrastructure providers and major enterprises."

ENQUIRIES

About Intercede:

Intercede is the producer of the MyID Identity and Credential Management System and MyID Management Agent for Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010.

Intercede MyID technology is being used around the world by large corporations, governments and banks to manage millions of identities for employees, citizens and customers. Notable deployments in the US include 14 federal agencies, two million smart cards in support of the US Transportation Worker Identity Credential program (TWIC), four US financial institutions and 340,000 smart corporate identity badges for Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin. In Europe, Australasia and the Middle East, Intercede MyID is being deployed in support of government identity, financial services, health and corporate employee ID security projects.

Intercede MyID is the only IDCMS software product that enables organizations to easily and securely manage the identities of people and their associated identity credentials within a single, integrated, workflow driven platform. This includes enabling and managing secure registration, biometric capture, application vetting and approval through to smart card personalization, issuance and management.

Intercede MyID was the first electronic personalization product to achieve compliance with the US FIPS-201 Personal Identity Verification (PIV) standard and is widely deployed by federal agencies, government contractors and other commercial entities. In particular, it supports the latest standards applicable for all PIV, PIV-Interoperable and PIV-Compatible deployments.

It can issue and manage a wide variety of identities and credentials, providing customers with a platform that can meet their needs now and in the future. It is a fully supported commercial off-the-shelf product that can be quickly deployed for thousands or millions of users.

For more information contact:

info@intercede.com or visit www.intercede.com or call +44-1455-558111

About Oxford Computer Group:

Oxford Computer Group (OCG) is an IT service company that specializes in Identity and Security with a particular focus on Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Information Protection. With 600+ enterprise projects completed and more than 6000 people trained on Microsoft IAM technologies, OCG has a wealth of expertise, solution components and training courses to offer.

For more information contact:

info@oxfordcomputergroup.com or visit www.oxfordcomputergroup.com or call 877-261-1617