Fiberlink Offers Mobile Wireless Security

Global Remote service extends secure remote access to wireless PDAs, smart phones.

Frank Thorsberg, PCWorld.com

Is your PDA smart enough to access the Internet, but not secure enough to safely navigate the company firewall to retrieve your e-mail?

Secure remote access developer Fiberlink has a solution: It is introducing a remote access platform that accommodates personal digital assistants.

The new service is an extension of Fiberlink's Global Remote client. It is intended to give mobile employees and on-the-go executives the same real-time access to the company intranet via PDAs and Web-enabled cell phones as they get from notebook computers.

The new service works with the Palm V, Palm VII, and the Kyocera smart phone. It will be available for Pocket PC devices sometime in the fourth quarter, according to Fiberlink representatives.

Fiberlink sells its secure remote access services to companies with large contingents of mobile workers--clients include PricewaterhouseCoopers and BMC Software. It targets large companies in the financial and pharmaceutical sectors, which are often early adopters of secure wireless communications technologies. Companies with fewer than 100 mobile workers probably won't be interested.

"I think this is the beginning of the new wave. These wireless devices are becoming pervasive. Soon, everybody will be using them for some form of mobile access," says Bill Wagner, Fiberlink's executive vice president of marketing. "If the enterprise doesn't start integrating authentication into the solution, they will be confronted with some serious problems down the road."

No New Passwords

With Global Remote, you use the same corporate password and user name to access e-mail and other programs whether you're sitting in the company office, using a home PC, or connecting to the intranet from the road with a smart phone.

"We set out to extend that world to the next generation of devices for the road warrior, things like PDAs and smart phones," Wagner says. "The same things that are critical to the company IT department--security, user authentication--are the things that have to apply to the wireless world just like they do to the wired world."

One key advantage of the new service is sensitive business information doesn't sit on the wireless device.

"It's a question of push or pull," Wagner says. "Do you want that info pushed out whenever they turn on the 'on' button or do you want your end-user to authenticate and pull down that info?"

Another selling point is that companies can use their existing security infrastructure, including Radius or LDAP authentication, with Global Remote.

"If a company were to buy a wireless solution as a standalone, they'd have to support two separate solutions," Wagner says. "We don't see it as two separate solutions, just secure mobile access to the enterprise."