IBM, Intel partner on security

IBM and Intel are teaming up again, this time to set security standards.

It is the second joint IBM and Intel venture this month. Big Blue and the chipmaker announced earlier this month that they were jointly developing, along with a handful of other firms, a new Unix operating system designed to run on numerous platforms.

This time, the two computing giants are targeting Internet security with a program to push security standards on the market that developers can use when creating software.

"To conduct e-business, companies need to know that their systems, assets, and business transactions will be protected," said Al Zollar, general manager of IBM's network computing software division. "By promoting a standards-based, interoperable, cross-platform approach, and by adopting this standard in our own products, IBM and Intel are making it easier and more cost-effective for customers to adopt encryption and conduct business on the Web more securely."

The program calls for IBM and Intel to push the Common Data Security Architecture as the Internet security standard so that software firms can write to a single security architecture rather than a slew of proprietary security systems, which are difficult to link together.

Intel developed the standard almost three years ago and today's announcement marks a major endorsement of the architecture. The Open Group, a standards body, has already accepted it. Other endorsements in recent years have come from Netscape, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Motorola, certificate authority Entrust, firewall and consulting firm Trusted Information Systems, Shell Oil, and banker JP Morgan.

IBM's initial support is the shipment of KeyWorks, a product based on the security standard for IBM's AIX, OS/400, and OS/390 server operating systems as well as in IBM's vault registry certificate management software and the IBM eNetwork firewall for AIX and Window's NT products.

Intel is an investor in CNET: The Computer Network.