Boston-based portal management solution provider Netegrity launched its Australian arm last week with a vision to push all e-businesses to build portals.
"We supply the picks and shovels to the [dot-com] miners," Chris Vickers, Netegrity's country manager, Australia/New Zealand, said.
Netegrity's flagship product, the SiteMinder e-commerce platform for secure portal management, is expected to drive initial sales in Australia. Designed for medium-to-large enterprises, the tool manages Web user authentication and transaction processes. Contrary to popular belief, it is "not a Web security tool", stressed Duncan Fisken, Netegrity Australia's managing director.
Compatible with Oracle, Novell and Microsoft systems, the tool ensures the user's access rights correspond with their rank in a company; that is, "what an individual is allowed to do", Fisken said.
For instance, a secretary would have limited rights to corporate information compared to a financial controller, he explained.
"We personalise the user experience," Fisken said. SiteMinder-powered sites authenticate users by establishing company name, job title and function.
According to Fisken, Netegrity eventually plans to add the capability to drill down and obtain a user's social security number and even shoe size. "If you can personalise the site, customers will keep coming back," he said.
According to Fisken, the company plans to strongly target the e-business extranet market, in particular medium-to-large organisations.
In fact, Telstra is rumoured to be piloting a Netegrity solution for its extranet. The telco is expected to negotiate a deal with Netegrity in the next five weeks, whereby mobile phone purchases will activate customer sign-ups to a free Netegrity solution, the executives said.