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PKWARE Announces PartnerLink for Secure Data Exchange between Business Partners

PartnerLink Provides Cost–Effective Data Security Platform for Exchanging Protected Files across Diverse IT Infrastructures

London, April 18, 2006 - PKWARE, the leading provider of enterprise solutions for secure and efficient data transfer and storage, today announced the European launch of PartnerLink, a new product that addresses the escalating concern for protecting data in cross-enterprise exchanges. A specialized deployment of PKWARE’s SecureZIP, which provides multi-platform file encryption and digital signature capabilities, PartnerLink provides a platform which enables the secure exchange of information between an enterprise and its customers, service providers and suppliers – regardless of existing IT infrastructures.

PartnerLink is designed to overcome the implementation and interoperability obstacles faced by other data security tools, which have failed to facilitate the two way secure exchange of data across diverse IT infrastructures. By providing one multi-platform conduit for businesses to freely share data with external partners and customers, PartnerLink overcomes complex and costly standardisation procedures, lowers the cost and time of implementation and enables persistent data protection for files whether in storage or transit.

Charles Kolodgy, Research Director of Secure Content and Threat Management Products at IDC commented: “Business partners and customers who need to secure their communications with each other often find it complex and costly to try to standardise on one security protocol. PKWARE's PartnerLink, however, solves the issue of standardisation by leveraging ZIP as a standard. The result is an easy-to-implement solution that increases security, mitigates business risk and improves efficiency.”

“By enabling businesses to establish a seamless data security platform with any or all of their external business partners, PartnerLink addresses one of the main data security challenges faced by Chief Information Officers across the world,” said Todd McLees, VP of International Operations, PKWARE. “This announcement will be central to the growth of our Global business and PartnerLink will represent an invaluable tool for companies that have to securely exchange vast quantities of sensitive data with external parties.”

In February 2006, PartnerLink was launched in North America and is already being used by companies in the Banking and Financial Services Industries, including Fidelity Information Services, one of the leading financial processing service companies in the world.

How PartnerLink Works
With PartnerLink, a sponsoring organisation implements SecureZIP, PKWARE’s flagship data security offering, for strong data encryption and digital signing. Sponsors can use SecureZIP to securely exchange data with any endpoint, whether internal or external to their firewalls. The sponsor’s business partners implement SecureLink, a free version of SecureZIP available online from the sponsor.  The PartnerLink platform enables each of the partners to securely exchange data with the sponsoring organisation, in cooperation with whatever security infrastructure they already have in place.

Files encrypted with SecureZIP and SecureLink are compatible across all major enterprise computing platforms including Windows, UNIX, Linux and IBM iSeries midrange and zSeries mainframe systems. Both SecureZIP and SecureLink enable persistent data protection at a file level whether in storage; in transit via FTP or email; or when copied to CD, tape, or other removable media.

To learn more about PartnerLink and SecureZIP, please visit PKWARE at InfoSecurity Europe, stand 215 or visit the PKWARE website at www.pkware.com.

About SecureZIP
Built on the widely adopted and completely interoperable ZIP standard, SecureZIP provides state-of-the-art strong encryption and digital signature capabilities. SecureZIP helps organizations mitigate risk by addressing common barriers to adoption faced when implementing wide-scale data security – both inside and outside the organization. PKWARE's cross-platform SecureZIP product family covers all major computing platforms, including Windows desktops, UNIX/Linux/Windows Server, iSeries midrange, and zSeries mainframe systems.

SecureZIP combines encryption and digital signature capabilities with the widely adopted ZIP file format, and is built on industry-leading RSA BSAFE® software from RSA Security® Inc. Having the flexibility to use either passwords or digital certificates enables SecureZIP to bridge a broad range of key distribution systems. Furthermore, SecureZIP is straightforward to deploy, reducing the complexity and cost common with other data security approaches.

SecureZIP has been nominated as a finalist in the SC Magazine 2006 Awards as the Best Encryption product in the category of Best Content Security Solution.

About PKWARE, Inc.
PKWARE, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise solutions for secure and efficient data transfer and storage, is the creator and continuing innovator of the ZIP standard. ZIP is the most widely used method for data compression on Windows, UNIX, Linux, iSeries, zSeries and other computing platforms. PKWARE's customer base includes 90 percent of the Fortune 100 companies including significant installations in 12 of the 13 top U.S. banks, major health care companies, federal agencies and state governments, and 50 percent of the top telecom, retail, and manufacturing companies. In 2004, PKWARE announced the SecureZIP product family, which extends the ZIP file format to include the ability to add strong authentication and encryption to ZIP archives, making it possible not only to compress files, but also to prevent unauthorized access and modification.