New US Government Contracts

20 Nov 2006 07:02

Intercede Group PLC20 November 2006 20 November 2006 INTERCEDE GROUP plc ('Intercede' or 'the Company') Additional US Federal Government Wins Intercede is delighted to inform the market that Operational ResearchConsultants, Inc. (ORC), a wholly owned subsidiary of WidePoint Corporation, anda RSA Security partner, has signed contracts with both the Federal TradeCommission (FTC) and the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) to provideend-to-end managed services in support of their Homeland Security PresidentialDirective 12 (HSPD-12) compliance. ORC's hosted PIVotal ID Card ManagementSystem (CMS), powered by the RSA Card Manager will provide both agencies withend-to-end PIV card enrolment, issuance and management services. RSA CardManager is powered by Intercede's MyID technology under an OEM licence agreementannounced in 2005. Whilst the revenues from these contracts will not bematerial in Intercede's current financial year, the Directors believe that theyare further evidence of the growing market traction being achieved by the MyIDtechnology. Richard Parris, Chairman & Chief Executive of Intercede, commented: "Intercede are delighted that both the FTC and the FHFB have selected MyIDpowered solutions from RSA Security and its partners. This announcementdemonstrates that MyID has the flexibility and scalability to work not only as astand-alone product, but also in a hosted environment, such as ORC, wheremultiple technologies and solutions are integrated to deliver an end-to-endservice." HSPD-12 is one of the most important and high profile security directives ofrecent years. It was issued by President Bush himself in August 2004 andrequired, firstly, the creation of an official federal standard (FIPS-201) forPersonal Identity Verification (PIV), which would prescribe technologies andprocesses for the effective vetting and access control of all federal employeesand contractors. The second requirement of HSPD-12 was for every US FederalAgency to have implemented a PIV solution by the end of October 2006, with allemployees and contractors required to have a personal-201 compliant, smart cardbased identity card one year later. Each of these cards will be issued andmanaged using a management system such as MyID. All HSPD-12 solutions must by mandate only incorporate products that have beenexhaustively tested against by the US General Services Administration (GSA), andincluded in the GSA's Approved Product List for PIV products. Intercedeannounced on 4 October 2006 that it had become the first product in its categoryto achieve this coveted status. It is estimated that almost 8 million identity cards will be issued underHSPD-12. Industry analysts Stanford Group estimate the total value of theprogramme to be worth approximately US$1.3 billion. About Intercede Intercede Group plc is a leading developer and supplier of smart card andidentity management software listed on the London Stock Exchange (IGP LN)(IGP.L). The Group's MyID software manages the secure registration, issuance andlifecycle of digital identities for a wide range of uses. This requires theintegration of multiple technologies and products from many different vendors,including smart cards, biometrics, digital certificates and Open Platformapplets. Intercede works with a number of market leading OEM, re-seller and technologypartners that supply MyID technology including: Athena Smartcard Solutions,Gemalto, RSA Security, SafeNet, Thales, VeriSign and a variety of systemsintegrators and other security product and service providers. For moreinformation, visit www.intercede.com Intercede and MyID are registered trademarks or trademarks in the UK, US and/orother countries. ENQUIRIES Intercede Group plc Tel. +44 (0)1455 558111Richard Parris, Chairman & Chief ExecutiveAndrew Walker, Finance Director Pelham Public RelationsArchie Berens Tel. +44 (0)20 7743 6679Kate Catchpole This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange