Encryption company PGP announced this week a deal to buy the German cloud-based identity management company TC TrustCenter and its U.S. parent company ChosenSecurity for an undisclosed amount.
Known best for its encryption and key management applications, PGP will now have a new way for channel partners to offer managed trusted identities for encryption, authentication and secure collaboration. TC TrustCenter's platform primarily provides secure, trusted transactions across PCs, servers and mobile devices. One of its specialties is web-based banking applications, which utilize TC TrustCenter identities to secure SSL transactions, authenticate mobile applications and create legally enforceable digital signatures.
This total mobile trusted identity package is a key value proposition for PGP, which was looking for a way to better integrate encryption and key management with identity and access solutions across the mobile landscape, which continues to grow by billions of devices each year.
“Trusted identities are a crucial component for data protection solutions that secure sensitive data,” Phillip Dunkelberger, president and CEO of PGP Corporation said in a statement. “With this acquisition, PGP Corporation is gaining an extensible platform that will dramatically accelerate its vision of delivering integrated data protection across vendors, technologies, and devices.”
Not only does the acquisition give PGP a way to integrate trusted identity technology into the PGP platform, it also offers the company and its partners a way to branch out through this software-as-a-service offering and bridge third-party security applications on the transaction front.
TC TrustCenter has a small, but established set of channel and OEM partners, several of whom specialize in identity management systems integration, such as San Jose-based Edgile, or in specialized applications, such as SAIC, which OEMs ChosenSecurity digital certificates for the pharmaceuticals industry.
The marriage of TrustCenter's identity management technology with PGP's encryption and much larger partner base could prove a winning combination.
"With its acquisition of TC TrustCenter and ChosenSecurity, PGP Corporation is establishing itself as a provider of globally trusted identities for not only its own applications, but other high value applications and transactions," Jon Oltsik, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group said in a statement. "PGP Corporation now owns an enabling technology for secure trusted Internet communications.”
