CRYPTOCard boosts UK partner base to meet demand for cloud-based authentication

• Redstone Managed Solutions is among five new partners to sign up to CRYPTO-MAS
• CRYPTOCard forecasts CRYPTO-MAS to account for 50 per cent of new customer acquisitions

06 July 2010, Bristol, UK: The demand for cloud-based authentication services has seen CRYPTOCard sign up five new UK partners for its innovative, award-winning CRYPTO-MAS platform in the past three months.

Redstone Managed Solutions, i-Topia, NetThreat and  Cygnia Technologies Ltd are new CRYPTOCard and CRYPTO-MAS partners , while Axial Systems, an existing CRYPTOCard partner, has extended its relationship to include CRYPTO-MAS.

The new partnerships bring increased depth to CRYPTOCard’s partner network in the UK, with the company’s flagship cloud-based authentication platform, CRYPTO-MAS, expected to be responsible for 50 per cent of new customer acquisitions. The exponential growth in CRYPTO-MAS reflects analyst reports that more than 20 per cent of the $1.5-$2bn total authentication market will be based on managed services by 2012.

Gartner expects that by 2014, a quarter of all large enterprises will be using a combination of private infrastructure and public cloud services. The signing up of CRYPTOCard’s new partners to provide cloud-based two factor authentication services reflects this trend with large businesses but also among a broader user base, for example NetThreat’s key focus is the small and medium-sized business market.

“The march of cloud computing is growing stronger but the number one reason take-up has been slow is due to security. Organisations have every right to be concerned if their company assets are only being protected with a password – the easiest and most hackable route into a network,” said Gary Marsden, VP Managed Services, CRYPTOCard. “CRYPTO-MAS changes the rules, providing organisations with robust, two factor authentication as a cloud-based service. Our partners are recognising this massive opportunity and both the reduced cost and increased margin benefits it can bring to their own businesses compared to selling traditional server based solutions.”

Resellers and integrators can benefit from the outset and can start selling CRYPTOCard’s unique cloud-based two-factor authentication to customers far easier and faster than with traditional server-based platforms. Traditional barriers of adoption such as training and tooling up are virtually eliminated through the simplicity of its configuration. CRYPTO-MAS also presents significant revenue streams for partners looking for new ways to add value to their portfolios and their customers. The managed services model also provides greater margins than traditional server-based models, providing annual, repeatable business for partners.

Redstone Managed Solutions, a leading provider of IT and communications solutions to public and private organisations, has bought into CRYPTO-MAS as a way of adding further value to its existing product and services portfolio.

“The foundation of Redstone’s business is to provide our customers with effective, secure and well managed IT that truly makes a difference to their businesses,” said Robert Cavan, Managing Director, Redstone Managed Solutions. Cloud-based services are the future of how businesses will access their information and applications; therefore security is pivotal to its adoption.  CRYPTO-MAS is an innovative and effective way to secure remote access and provides an extra layer of value to our customers. With no upfront IT investment required, we can get customers up and running quickly with minimum cost.”

CRYPTO-MAS delivers a low cost, ultra reliable platform that benefits from the widest range of hardware and software tokens, including innovative SMS, mobile phone and Blackberry options, available on any cloud-based authentication service. The benefits of CRYPTO-MAS include no upfront costs, no ongoing IT and resource overheads and an enterprise 99.999 per cent service level, all delivered in a utility-based pricing model.

CRYPTOCard is a dedicated channel business and supports it growing ecosystem of Service Providers, System Integrators, VADs and VARs in the winning of more profitable long term business by securing their customers’ digital identities.

Ends

About CRYPTOCard

CRYPTOCard, the authentication authority, helps organizations mitigate the risk of identity theft by using appropriate authentication to secure digital identities. Headquartered in Canada and the UK, CRYPTOCard’s products are used by thousands of companies in more than 70 countries globally.

CRYPTOCard’s award-winning authentication platform benefits its users by delivering an exceptionally low cost of ownership. The platform, available as a cloud based service or server based application, offers unrivalled automated provisioning to reduce management time by up to 90%, and an innovative and wide ranging mix of hardware, software, SMS, phone or grid based tokens to ensure that any business's authentication framework strategy is fully covered.

Established in 1989 and with a proud heritage of technology and product leadership, CRYPTOCard’s flagship product, CRYPTO- MAS, is the world’s first enterprise cloud-based authentication platform, offering users the greatest management functionality and the widest and most innovative range of tokens available on any cloud based authentication service.  www.cryptocard.com

For further information, please contact:
Fran Kirkham or James Rickard
Band & Brown Communications
cryptocard@bbpr.com
020 7419 7000