April 23, 2002 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Secure messaging solution provider ZixIt Corp. (zixit.com) announced on Tuesday that it has formed an agreement to provide Fetter Logic Inc. (fetterlogic.com), an ASP focused on the financial services industry, the means to supply its customers with ZixIt?s ZixVPM secure messaging solution.
r
r
r
r
The Zix Virtual Private Messenger, says the company, is a network-based email encryption service allowing users to send private electronic communications to other users of the service as well as non-users.
r
r
r
r
The service is delivered partly through a piece of customer premises equipment called the ZixVPM Gateway. ?We manage all the encryption keys in our worldwide signature server hosted here in Dallas,? says ZixIt?s vice president of North American sales and service Dennis Heathcoate. ?And that ZixVPM gateway solution has visibility to those encryption keys.?
r
r
r
r
Using something the company calls its ?best method of delivery? intelligence to determine the recipient?s environment, the ZixVPM gateway can send encrypted messages to another gateway device, to a desktop using ZixIt?s software, or to a user who hasn?t installed the software. ?”If I sent you a secure message through our ZixVPM server,? says Heathcoate, ?you would get a message saying I had sent you a secure message, and you would have to click on a link, which you would then authenticate at our secure message center. Then an SSL session would be established for you to retrieve that message securely.”
r
r
r
r
For Fetter Logic, the appeal of the solution lies largely in the fact that in recent years, under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, financial institutions have been assigned strict regulations on the steps they take to safeguard their customers? personal financial information. Providing support for encrypted email services was a simple logical step for Fetter Logic, which already provides email hosting services.
r
r
r
r
The relationship with the ASP was more of a departure for ZixIt, a company that provides its services mostly through annual subscriptions sold directly to customers. But ZixIt, says Heathcoate, can see the obvious advantages of working through a company such as Fetter Logic, especially when similar regulations have been placed on other markets, such as healthcare.
r
r
r
r
?As Fetter Logic has identified,? he says, ?it’s a way for them to provide additional value to their customers. They have a captive customer base, being themselves an ASP, and we see other ASPs looking for what a number of their customers, be they a healthcare customer or a financial services customer or something else, need to secure their email. It’s easy for them to provide added value to their customer base with our type of solution.”
r
r
r
r
Heathcoate says the increasing awareness of the need for security, along with increasing regulation, is contributing to the attention ZixIt?s services are receiving. “Today we’re seeing a lot of interest,? he says, ?from the major financial institutions, insurance companies and major healthcare providers all the way to a local law firm, so its a very broad range in terms of its applicability to corporate America.”
