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Post Trust said that its e-mail encryption service for businesses, called SafeMail, is the first open-model PKI (public key infrastructure) e-mail service to go live in Ireland. "We handle all the key management for our business customers. Our service is ready for business today," Donal Sullivan, e-business manager of Post Trust told ElectricNews.Net on Thursday. SafeMail was expected to go live at the end of August but Post Trust said final testing and work on an advertising campaign delayed the launch by a few months.
The SafeMail system allows users to encrypt e-mail and attach a digital signature to an e-mail or a document attached to an e-mail. Post Trust manages the encryption keys for its users, so that different businesses can exchange encrypted e-mail without issues of technology compatibility.
A core benefit of SafeMail is that businesses can have the processes and management of encryption technologies outsourced in an ASP (application service provider) model. In this way, businesses do not have to buy into expensive encryption technologies themselves. The service has cost An Post IEP5 million to bring to market with technologies from providers including Baltimore, Microsoft, and Arcot.
Post Trust anticipates that it will have between ten and fifteen pilot businesses running SafeMail by the end of the year. The company expects to have the service up to "full ramp" in January. SafeMail is not being directly sold from Post Trust but by value-added resellers including Cara Group, BCS Computers, Connect Business Systems and CK Business Solutions.
The SafeMail service is currently compatible with Windows Exchange 2000 and with operating systems Windows NT and Windows 2000. Post Trust said it expects to release a plug-in for Lotus Notes shortly and said that it has chosen these two platforms because they are the most prevalent among businesses.
The company said it also expects to release the Web-based e-mail security product, Secure Web in the second quarter of 2002. Sullivan said, "We have all the technology ready, we are just finding the best route to market and price for the service." Secure Web is targeted at small businesses that use Web-based e-mail because they do not have an e-mail server.
The company's third product, Secure Document Delivery is still being developed with no fixed date for release. Secure Document Delivery is intended to give businesses an audit trail in documentation exchange with time stamps and information on who has read and approved a document with digital signatures.
For more information visit http://www.post.trust.ie.
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