Courion Introduces Industry's First and Only Complete Self-Service Identity Management Suite.

Business/Technology Editors

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 15, 2001

Expands Customer-Proven Solution Suite With New Self-Service

Account Provisioning and Certificate Registration Products

In its continuing effort to help enterprises cost-effectively and securely scale their delivery of electronic services to employees, business partners and customers, Courion(R) Corporation today introduced its new Identity Management Suite, the industry's first and only complete self-service identity management product family. With Courion's Identity Management Suite, companies will benefit from lower user support costs, more efficient administration and tighter security, while their employees, business partners and customers will benefit from faster service and enhanced privacy.

Featuring new versions of PasswordCourier(R), Courion's flagship offering for self-service password reset and synchronization, and ProfileCourier(TM), the company's self-service directory registration solution, the suite introduces two new products - AccountCourier(TM) for self-service account provisioning, and CertificateCourier(TM) for self-service digital certificate registration. Together, the four software products manage all the key components of digital identity, and mark an important milestone in Courion's evolving strategy to offer a complete self-service infrastructure for managing user authentication, authorization, and access.

According to META Group, users call the help desk an average of 1.75 times per month, with 30% of those calls driven by password-related requests. With an average cost of $20 per call, an enterprise with 20,000 employees will spend over $2.5 million a year on password administration alone. Similar hard costs for creating, disabling, and deleting user accounts, updating employee and business partner profiles, and registering for digital certificates drove Courion to expand its solution suite to include software products that help organizations realize rapid ROI in these areas as well.

Courion's customers have realized tremendous ROI from implementing its self-service password and profile management solutions, and see a clear benefit from a suite that will address all identity management needs. "Before implementing PasswordCourier, our help desk fielded more than ten thousand calls every month from employees requesting password reset," said Chris Price, computing services director, Cummins, Inc. "Now, those users can securely reset their own passwords, relieving a huge burden from our IT staff. Given its track record, we believe Courion's self-service account provisioning and certificate registration solutions offer significant potential savings as well."

"As organizations open their networks to increasing numbers of employees, customers and partners, they are presented with the challenge of providing accounts to potentially millions of users with the appropriate level of access to applications and systems," said Roberta Witty, research director, Gartner, Inc. "As a result, large enterprises are beginning to demand comprehensive identity management solutions that can provide self-service to end users in a secure environment while addressing all aspects of user administration, authentication and access control."

Courion's Identity Management Suite empowers employees, business partners and customers to reset their own forgotten or expired passwords, create and disable user accounts, update personal profiles, and acquire digital certificates for corporate PKI -- all without requiring information security staff to relinquish control. Courion's unique self-service architecture enables IT security and help desk staff to audit requests and exert complete control over security policies without the usual administrative burden or user support costs. Each of the suite's software applications can be implemented together or separately, and all share a common platform that provides the enterprise integration points required for secure self-service.

The two new products in the suite, AccountCourier and CertificateCourier, were developed using the same open architecture as PasswordCourier and ProfileCourier, requiring no proprietary database for installation. In addition to seamless integration with the most common pieces of infrastructure such as LDAP directories or employee databases, the new products integrate with the market-leading service management solutions from Peregrine Systems and PeopleSoft to allow for more efficient service level reporting and security auditing.

"Today's global economy requires organizations to open their networks to a number of external constituencies, making security an increasingly key element of enterprise IT strategy," said Tom Rose, vice president of marketing at Courion. "At the same time, organizations need to ensure that users have fast access to revenue-generating applications, while minimizing the costs and inefficiencies of user support and administration. Courion's Identity Management Suite, with its unique self-service approach, addresses all of these seemingly conflicting requirements by eliminating the need to manually provision and manage user profiles, passwords, accounts, and digital certificates."

Product Details

Courion's Identity Management Suite includes the following four products:

PasswordCourier enables employees, business partners and customers to instantly and securely reset forgotten or expired passwords and synchronize passwords on e-business systems, applications and Web sites. New PasswordCourier features in this release include:

-- an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) access option that integrates with
digital phone switches to enable users to reset passwords using a telephone;
complements PasswordCourier's existing Web and desktop access options;

-- integration with Clarify ClearHelpdesk and PeopleSoft Vantive Help Desk for
automated ticketing;

-- the industry's first BAPI-validated password reset capability for mySAP.com
(SAP R/3);

-- password reset support for Lotus Notes R5; and

-- PasswordCourier SDK that enables companies to securely develop password
reset capabilities for in-house applications.

AccountCourier, Courion's new self-service account provisioning solution, enables security administrators to define policies that empower business managers to quickly create, enable, disable, and delete accounts and user IDs for employees, business partners, and customers. Innovative features include:

-- Dynamic Communities(TM), which enable security administrators

to restrict provisioning options based on the end user's

profile;

-- User Modeling(TM), which enables business managers to grant

and revoke user accounts without having to know the specifics

of back-end systems and applications;

-- integration with multiple, existing sources of employee data,

giving security administrators the power to control account

management policies without complex role definition or

administrative burden; and

-- provisioning support for Windows NT, Windows 2000, Microsoft

Active Directory, iPlanet Directory Server, and IBM OS/390,

with support for more platforms and applications to quickly

follow.

CertificateCourier, Courion's new self-service digital certificate registration solution, works with a company's existing public key infrastructure (PKI) to automate digital certificate enrollment. Features include:

-- challenge/response authentication;

-- integration with leading help desk applications and databases

for guaranteed audit trails; and

-- integration with Entrust PKI Certificate Authority to

immediately download digital certificates to user desktops

without manual intervention. Support for additional PKI

systems will follow.

ProfileCourier, formerly ProfileBuilder, enables employees and customers to privately register, update, and store personal profile data -- name, address, phone number, authentication questions and answers -- within corporate or e-business directories and databases. New features in this release include:

-- integration with Clarify ClearHelpdesk and PeopleSoft

Vantive Help Desk for automated ticketing.

Pricing and Availability

PasswordCourier, AccountCourier, ProfileCourier, and CertificateCourier will be available independently or together as part of Courion's Identity Management Suite in November 2001. Pricing for the full suite will start at $50 per licensed employee for enterprise implementations. B2B and B2C pricing, volume pricing, and term (subscription) licenses will also be available.

About Courion

Courion Corporation provides self-service identity management solutions to more Fortune 500 enterprises than any other company. IT organizations and customer service centers choose Courion's self-service password and directory management software to reduce support costs, increase security and improve customer service. Courion's solutions fully integrate with existing IT infrastructures and corporate security policies, enabling companies to scale e-business operations and achieve fast return on investment. Companies that rely on Courion solutions include customers such as The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., The Boeing Company, Cummins, Inc., Dell Computer Corp., ExxonMobil Corp., Hewitt Associates, Raymond James Financial, Inc., SunTrust Bank, and Target Corporation, and partners such as Compaq Computer Corp., Unisys Corp. and Peregrine Systems. Courion's headquarters is in Framingham, MA. For more information visit www.courion.com.