By Sally Watson, 25 May 2000 10:27
NEWS Security specialist Axent Technologies has won a $20m five-year contract to provide Xerox with fully outsourced ebusiness security services in Europe. The document management firm plans to farm out responsibility for the online security of its mobile workforce, digital business programmes and e-procurement. The deal is expected to serve up to 100,000 Xerox staff and customers over the next two years. The contract is Axent's largest ever win, and its first complete outsourced security deal in Europe. According to John Holland, VP for EMEA operations at the company, it's a trend that is likely to continue. "There is increasingly going to be a demand made by companies for fully outsourced security operations," Holland said. "It's very difficult for companies to get the range of skills sets they need for true security architecture inhouse. And it's very expensive to have experts in all the disciplines they need." He added: "Axent has already been delivering parts of the service to companies for a while - like the management of firewalls - this just brings all those expertise together." The deal supports Xerox's reinvention from an analogue copier company to an online document management specialist. Axent will leverage Xerox's existing security architecture and provide additional technology including intrusion detection, VPN (virtual private network) and Web authentication software. Holland said: "This whole initiative is driven by Xerox's realisation that by implementing ebusiness both internally and externally they have to make sure there is a significant level of trust on the network."
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