PKI to boom for secure B2B

NEWS The security protocol, which enables messages and documents to be sent in encrypted form over the internet, has long been touted as the future for secure business, but has so far failed to become widely accepted. But according to Charles Kolodgy, research manager at IDC's internet security program, the technology is finally ready to take off. "The push towards B2B ecommerce is fueling adoption of PKI as a business-enablement infrastructure tool for distributed authentication, authorisation, encryption and administration," he said in a statement. IDC claims the market for PKI and products and certificate authority (CA) services will rocket from $281m in 1999 to $3bn in 2004. The use of PKI for messaging, content delivery and secure transactions will fuel its growth. The reluctance to adopt PKI has been blamed on the difficulty and expense of implementing the technology, a limitation which IDC claims has still not been overcome. But the research group is predicting speedy growth for certificate services which provide PKI expertise, rather than the current domination of pure-play technology products.