Tivoli extends products to Wap devices

Systems management vendor Tivoli yesterday announced a range of security management and access control products supporting wireless application protocol (Wap).

According to Tivoli, extending its management products into the mobile world will reduce the need for users to deploy a redundant, parallel access control solution that manages access to ebusiness applications and data from Wap devices.

Through the extension of its SecureWay Policy Director and Privacy Manager access control management products to Wap devices, Tivoli hopes to reduce the cost and complexity involved in deploying mobile commerce applications.

Carl Kessler, vice president and general manager at Tivoli SecureWay, said that 30 per cent of the expense of developing an application was consumed by building in security. He added that a better approach would be to take the implementation of security rules away from individual applications into a central authorisation server, such as Policy Director, which would manage access to data across an enterprise.

This is possible because Policy Director's authorisation API enables customers to reduce costs associated with building security into applications by reducing the need to write complex security code.

"Tivoli's focus on controlling access and providing single sign-on to ebusiness applications from Wap devices will make it easier for developers to extend ebusiness applications to these non-traditional points of access," said Kessler.

Tivoli itself would not develop encryption and authentication technology, he added, but will work through partners to deliver this technology.

James Governor, an analyst at Illuminata, said that Tivoli can be expected to make deals with the likes of Nokia and Ericsson to develop products that are likely to be attractive to the European market.

"Tivoli is well placed to provide the software infrastructure to allow interesting applications like allowing people to do expenses over their mobile phone," said Governor, who added that Computer Associates' approach to the pervasive computing market was "very US focused".

Tivoli SecureWay Policy Director with Wap support is currently available worldwide. Similar functionality will be available with Privacy Manager, which protects consumers' personally identifiable information by controlling access, later this year.

Future enhancements to the products will be focused on helping Wap application developers go to market faster with secure solutions.