Network Engines Looks to Rainbow for Security

In an effort to enter the potentially lucrative Internet appliance market, security solutions provider Rainbow Technologies, Inc. struck an OEM agreement Tuesday with Network Engines to offer businesses a secure e-commerce enabling option.

Under the terms of the agreement, Network Engines will incorporate Rainbow’s PKI (public key infrastructure)-based CryptoSwift technology into its CommerceEngine Internet server appliance product.

vCommerceEngine was designed, according to Network Engines, to provide businesses with a means of deploying and managing a server platform for handling up to 200 transactions per second. Network Engines is looking to its CryptoSwift product addition to provide CommerceEngine users with increased capacity, speed, system availability and performance for online business applications and environments.

“With our new Internet Appliance Architecture, Network Engines is looking to provide customers with a simple, cost-effective alternative for building or enhancing their Internet computing backbone,” commented Larry Genovesi, Network Engines president and CEO.

An Explosive Market

The CommerceEngine product is part of Network Engines’ Internet Appliance Architecture, which includes application-specific Internet server appliances that go after the traditional market.

Network Engines is entering what could potentially be an explosive market. In fact, according to International Data Corp. (IDC), the appliance server market will exceed $7.9 billion (US$) in revenues with more than two million units shipped internationally by 2003.

The Internet appliance space, which has received considerable media attention, has an expansive list of market entrants, including Cobalt Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: COBT). The Wall Street sensation recently entered into a strategic partnership with e-commerce solutions provider INTERSHOP Communications, Inc. to create a new Linux-based e-commerce appliance.

Utility software solutions provider Network Associates, Inc. recently released another kind of appliance product, the WebShield E-ppliance, at the RSA Security Conference 2000 in San Jose, California. The product combines anti-virus, firewall and VPN (virtual private network) software in what the company described as “an easy-to-use plug-and-play e-business appliance.”

Network Crypto

In other online security news, NEC Corp. announced this week that it has developed new encryption technology to combat hackers who launch attacks on e-commerce operations.

Cipherunicorn-A, featuring a dynamic encryption code, will create both false and true keys, making it more difficult for an attacker to compromise sensitive information. The technology will be incorporated into future security-related software products.