BOCA RATON, FL, April 4, 2005 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- By deploying an integrated smart card security solution for both data and physical access, an enterprise may annually save more than $2 million for every 2,000 employees covered by such a combined identity and access management system, according to a new survey conducted by Datamonitor and commissioned by Siemens Communications, Inc.
"Increasingly, enterprises are looking to deploy converged security solutions that use the same authentication mechanism for both logical and physical access," said Tim Gower, senior analyst of Datamonitor, a premium business information and industry analysis company. In the fall of 2004, Datamonitor conducted a North American survey of 53 enterprises to explore current authentication practices and the potential benefits of converging logical and physical access solutions. The survey's findings were captured in a new Datamonitor report, "The ROI Case for Smart Cards in the Enterprise."
According to the survey report, substantial cost savings may result from factors such as reduced time spent on sign-on procedures, better management of PKI certificates, consolidation of employee access privileges onto a single, multi-functional smart card, reduced numbers of password-related queries made to IT departments and greater automation of card provisioning.
Siemens is one of the few companies able to provide integrated security solutions for physical, identity and access management protection. Siemens' smart-card-based HiPath(R) SIcurity® family of solutions, for example, provides cost-effective identity access and management to control security privileges for buildings, rooms, IT infrastructures and critical applications. In addition, its smart card solution can also serve other value-added functions such as cashless payment transactions and the collection of time data.
Siemens also provides building control and monitoring through its Siemens Building Technologies Group, including the Siemens SiPass® Access Control Management solution that makes it possible for an enterprise to control and monitor facilities from a single workstation. Finally, easy management and provisioning - and de-provisioning - of user access privileges are made possible by the Siemens DirX® portfolio, a meta-directory database solution.
Datamonitor plc is a premium business information company specializing in industry analysis. We help our clients, 5,000 of the world's leading companies, to address complex strategic issues. Through our proprietary databases and wealth of expertise, we provide clients with unbiased expert analysis and in-depth forecasts for six industry sectors: Automotive, Consumer Markets, Energy, Financial Services, Health Care and Technology. Datamonitor maintains its headquarters in London and has regional offices in New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Frankfurt, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Siemens AG (www.usa.siemens.com) is one of the largest global electronics and engineering companies with reported worldwide sales of $91.5 billion in fiscal 2004. Founded more than 150 years ago, the company is a leader in the areas of Medical, Power, Automation and Control, Transportation, Information and Communications, Lighting, Building Technologies, Water Technologies and Services and Home Appliances. With its U.S. corporate headquarters in New York City, Siemens in the USA has sales of $16.6 billion and employs 70,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Eleven of Siemens' worldwide businesses are based in the United States. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens AG and its subsidiaries employ 430,000 people in 192 countries.
Siemens Communications Inc. (www.usa.siemens.com/communications), offers its customers a broad portfolio of communication products and services and is a leader in convergent technologies, products and services for wireless, fixed and enterprise networks. The company's portfolio ranges from devices for end users to complex network infrastructures and complementary services for enterprises, carriers and service providers. Siemens Communications, Inc., is headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla.
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