Ping Identity Launches PingLogin for Managing Consumer Authentication; Next-Generation Consumer Authentication Framework Expands Ping Identity's Sign-On Management Product Offerings.

DENVER -- Ping Identity Corporation today introduced PingLogin, a next-generation authentication and single sign-on framework for consumer-facing online services and Web applications. Designed to enable extensible and flexible deployments, PingLogin reduces the maintenance and development costs associated with strong authentication implementations. Additionally, PingLogin delivers the agility needed to meet changing business and security demands. PingLogin will be available for free download from www.pingidentity.com under Ping Identity's innovative Sign On NOW! Program in July 2006.

In a companion release, Ping Identity today also announced the general availability of PingFederate 4, the latest release of its industry-leading federated identity server. The Ping Identity product family now enables end-to-end sign-on management for verifying identity, enabling single sign-on, and controlling internal and external access across a broad landscape of Web applications and loosely-coupled Web services. Ping Identity's customers use this technology to improve customer security, expand collaboration with trading partners, and reduce the burden of regulatory compliance.

Organizations Retooling Authentication to Manage Fraud

"Identity fraud has not only led to significant financial losses for both consumers and online service, but also a reduction in consumers' trust in online transactions. As a result, the FDIC and other federal banking agencies are leading the charge to require stronger authentication," said Scott Crawford, senior analyst, Enterprise Management Associates. "A major challenge for online service providers is to keep up with the inevitable authentication 'arms race' that is ensuing as a result."

"When it comes to consumer authentication, existing commercial products are light on authentication flexibility and extensibility and heavy on policy and authorization functionality," said Andre Durand, CEO, Ping Identity. "PingLogin has been designed from the ground up to meet new and very specific authentication requirements of consumer-facing online services. Our customers receive a flexible authentication framework that will allow them to make rapid adjustments to their architectures as their requirements change."

Strong Partnerships for Strong Authentication

In addition to managing single sign-on between consumers and online services, PingLogin provides an integration layer between strong authentication mechanisms and consumer-facing applications. Ping Identity is partnering with leaders in consumer authentication technology to reduce the integration and maintenance burden on joint customers.

"We are pleased to announce several partnerships that endorse the strength of the PingLogin user authentication and single sign-on framework", said Durand. "BioPassword, Trade Harbor, and VerID are industry leaders in providing consumer authentication technologies. Our vision is to pre-integrate all of the leading consumer authentication technologies into PingLogin, significantly reducing the time and cost of integration by our customers."

The PingLogin Advantage:

--Adapts to Shifting Authentication Needs: PingLogin's extensible architecture provides customers with a cost-effective approach for dealing with the inevitability of N-Factor identity verification. PingLogin's lightweight and extensible runtime engine, combined with an easy-to-use administrative console and strong authentication integration SDK, enables customers to rapidly add new identity verification systems when they need to address new threats. PingLogin integrates new authentication methods with a central authentication service rather than with each individual application.

--Extensibility and Flexibility: PingLogin uses open protocols and an open token format for exchanging session information about a particular user's session. A flexible SDK gives customers a robust framework for integrating PingLogin into existing Web applications and environments. In addition, Ping Identity is releasing all PingLogin SDKs and agents on an open-source basis and making the runtime engine code available to paying customers as shared source to ensure customers have complete control over their consumer authentication systems.

--Support Diverse Consumer Devices: PingLogin includes a binding mechanism that supports multiple consumer communications devices including Web browsers, PDAs, Smart Phones, AJAX and Microsoft .NET rich applications, voice recognition units, Car Navigation Systems, etc. Ping Identity, its partners and customers can all add support for new devices through an open binding SDK.

--Centralized Authentication Auditing: Because PingLogin centralizes the consumer authentication process, it simplifies auditing and logging. PingLogin decreases or eliminates the need to monitor multiple authentication sites and reduces the overall level of effort to track usage history.

Product Availability

PingLogin 1.0 will be available for free download from www.pingidentity.com in July 2006. The first six months or 100,000 transactions (whichever comes first) are free. Subscription-based, limited and unlimited use licenses are available. An Early Release version of PingLogin is available today from Ping Identity. For more information, please contact the company at 877.898.2905 (+1 303.468.2882 outside North America) or [e-mail].

About Ping Identity Corporation

Ping Identity Corporation's (www.pingidentity.com) market-leading sign-on management software technology establishes a benchmark in the Identity Management Industry. Our solutions for consumer authentication, federated Web single sign-on and service-oriented architectures enable organizations to improve customer security, expand collaboration with trading partners, and reduce the burden of regulatory compliance. Ping Identity's customers include American Express, Boeing, Fidelity Investments, New York Life and Pulte Homes.

All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.