BCE Emergis Signs Agreement for Certificate Authority Services With BCE Inc

Business Wire, April 8, 1999

MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 8, 1999--

BCE Emergis (TSE, ME:IFM) today announced the signing of a 3 year agreement with BCE Inc. to host and manage their Certificate Authority (CA). The initial deployment encompasses the distribution of 38,000 digital certificates and has a potential to grow to meet the entire workforce of BCE, which represents 58,000 employees, excluding Nortel. This BCE Certificate Authority implementation will be one of the largest private Certificate Authorities in operation worldwide.

The Certificate Authority, designed and developed entirely by BCE Emergis is based on Entrust Technologies Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology and is currently in operation within BCE Emergis' highly secure PKI Centre.

"We are very excited to work with BCE Emergis which has proven to be one of the leaders in PKI solutions" said David Cox, Chief Information Officer, Bell Canada. "By adopting BCE Emergis' PKI solution for its Certificate Authority, BCE can now take full advantage of the flexibility and affordability of the Internet, Intranets and Extranets, to provide electronic communications and transactions among employees, customers, suppliers and partners - while assuring the highest level of security."

"The fact that we have been chosen by BCE Inc., Canada's largest telecommunications company, is a strong endorsement of our ability to manage comprehensive and large-scale PKI implementations", said Christian Trudeau, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, BCE Emergis. "The growth potential of this agreement is phenomenal and could lead us to be one of the largest business public-key infrastructure providers in the world."

BCE Emergis designs and operates PKI Hosting and Management Services on behalf of client organizations. Customers benefit from BCE Emergis' expertise, fast turn-around time, scalability, cross-certification capabilities and economies of scale - while maintaining total control over their security policies. BCE intends to use the Certificate Authority to secure E-mail and implement desktop security, remote access (through Virtual Private Networks), single sign-on, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Smart Cards, and other internal applications.

PKI consists of a comprehensive system that provides public-key encryption and digital signature services. Its primary purpose is to provide access control, authentication, data privacy, data integrity and non-repudiation through a trustworthy network environment. BCE Emergis' central responsibility is to issue and manage the digital certificates that enable these services to the users and devices on BCE's network. The digital certificates serve as passports for the network users, they are electronic profiles containing identity information and keys for encryption and signature verification.

BCE Emergis delivers network-centric e-commerce services that improve customer processes through the exchange of secure transactions. Combining e-commerce services, network infrastructure, security and electronic payments through industry verticals, BCE Emergis offers a full suite of core technologies that are the essential building blocks for electronic commerce. BCE Emergis is among the top electronic commerce providers in North America and is a member of the TSE 300 Composite Index. For more information, please refer to www.emergis.com.