VERISIGN, NOVELL PARTNER TO BUILD TRUSTED INTERNET COMMUNITIES.

VeriSign Trust Services Enhance New Novell digitalme Initiative

Under a pact announced earlier this month, Novell will integrate VeriSign's digital certificate services into Novell's new digitalme service. Planned initiatives include authentication of digitalme membercards by VeriSign and integration of the two companies' directories, enabling consumers and businesses across the Internet to conduct secure, trusted transactions and communications.

Novell's digitalme is a new identity management technology which leverages Novell Directory Services (NDS) technology to allow consumers to control how their personal information is shared, used, and maintained on the Net.

"Establishing a trusted environment is the key to managing identities across the Internet," says Eric Schmidt, CEO of Novell. "The combination of VeriSign's recognized trust services with the convenience of digitalme enables consumers and businesses alike to share, use and maintain personal information on the Internet with confidence."

Working together, VeriSign and Novell will offer consumers a co-branded digitalme membercard linked to a VeriSign digital certificate, enabling authenticated online communications and secure e-mail. In addition, the two companies will link the digitalme directory of users' personal information, based on NDS, with VeriSign's public digital certificate directory, containing over four million digital certificates. Digital certificates are electronic credentials used for secure access and e- mail over the Web.

Novell will also use VeriSign's Secure Site services to encrypt the exchange of personal information between consumers and the digitalme service and will identify VeriSign Secure Sites listed on its new digitalme.com Web site. The two companies also intend to integrate Novell's directory services with VeriSign's OnSite managed certificate services for enterprise customers.

"As online communities proliferate, simplicity, convenience and security rise to the top as key concerns for consumers and businesses across the Internet," says Stratton Sclavos, CEO of VeriSign. "With digitalme, users are placed in control of their identity and can rest assured that their personal information is being protected with state- of-the-art digital certificate and directory-based technologies."