HID has announced the Alliances and Partners Program. The goal of the undertaking is to facilitate the availability of integrated application solutions based on HID technologies and products by working with third party hardware and software providers. Market drivers behind the new initiative are the emerging trend toward the convergence of physical and logical access control onto a common credential, the increasing role of smart card technology and the broadening requirements for reader or reader/writer devices and other system peripherals to support new applications.
"We want to make HID the technology platform of choice, and that means making sure the right solutions are available whether customers want proximity, contactless or contact smart cards, or a combination," said Mark Scaparro, HID's executive vice president of sales. "We have worked in a number of implementations at companies including Boeing, Pfizer and CATSA where end customers wanted to use their employee badge for IT security or other applications like time and attendance, biometrics, ID badge printing and cashless vending. The industry is calling this trend convergence. While there are several ways to do this, they all have one thing in common - the total solution involves more than just one company's technology. Our goal is listen to our customers, determine where they are headed and then form relationships that cross traditional lines in order to position appropriate technologies around our proximity, iCLASS and combination card and reader products."
HID chose smart card expert Dovell Bonnett to head up the new program. Bonnett has more than 11 years of experience in the smart card industry as well as an extensive background in systems engineering, business development and partner program management. An engineer himself, he specializes in translating and integrating technology components into an end-user solution designed to solve business problems. Bonnett played a leadership role in defining and bringing to market the new HID products that incorporate physical and logical access onto a single credential using both contactless and contact smart cards. He is an active member of the Smart Card Alliance and has been a major contributor to two recent Alliance physical access security white papers.
In his new role, Bonnett will direct the existing iCLASS Development Partner and eProx programs, as well as the recently announced Secure Multi-Access Ready-to-Ship (SMARTS) program. The SMARTS program offers small and mid-sized organizations a way to order low volume quantities (10-999) and quick delivery of 125 kHz proximity technology cards with an embedded contact smart chip module from leading smart chip vendors.
"With important activities and relationships already in place, Dovell provides a focal point to increase the scope of these partnering efforts," said Scaparro.
"Putting together a multi-application card-based system of any type requires close cooperation between companies to make the diverse hardware devices work with the credentials, and to make the solution easy to use and understand. My mission is to make sure we are listening to our customers and doing everything we can to extend HID products to provide them with the right mix of capabilities they want," said Bonnett.
