Total Cost Of Ownership Of Voltage Research Study

Study Finds Overall TCO of a Typical Voltage IBE System to be one-third the TCO of Typical PKI SystemSan Francisco–May 30th, 2006Ferris Research, Inc. a leading independent provider of IT market research and analysis, today released a report examining the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Voltage Security’s Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) system compared to the TCO of a typical public key infrastructure (PKI) system. The study solidifies the position of Voltage as the lowest cost of secure messaging and enterprise privacy management technology in the industry.The research findings include:

1. Overall, the TCO of a typical Voltage IBE system is one-third the TCO of a typical PKI system.
2. The Voltage IBE system needs a far simpler infrastructure than does a typical PKI system, meaning fewer servers and easier installation.
3. Operations costs for a typical Voltage IBE system are one-fifth those of a typical PKI system.
4. User productivity losses for the Voltage IBE system are one-third those of a typical PKI system.

“We have been using our TCO research model to study technology ownership costs for over 15 years and rarely do we see such a large cost advantage over a legacy technology, such as PKI, in favor of a new technology, such as Voltage IBE. We expected to see maybe a two-to-one cost difference and were quite surprised at the actual results,” said David Ferris, president and senior analyst of Ferris Research, Inc.

The study was commissioned by Voltage Security in early 2006 with the objective of creating an independent, third party resource for TCO information for prospective Voltage customers. “Our customers have always known that Voltage IBE significantly lowers administrative overhead for their enterprise-wide secure messaging implementations,” said Wasim Ahmad, vice president of marketing for Voltage. “This study is important because it systematically verifies the numbers and puts the TCO into context for real world deployments.”

The Ferris Research TCO Model

The Ferris Research TCO Model has been in development since 1991. It breaks down a typical technology deployment into three primary cost centers:

1. Direct costs which includes the cost of labor related to ownership of the technology.
2. Platform costs such as the cost of software, hardware and other technology components.
3. User productivity costs

About Voltage IBE

Voltage IBE™ is a public key cryptography system that uses common identities (such as an email address or screen name) as public keys, eliminating the need for certificates, Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL) and other costly infrastructure. Voltage IBE results in a solution that is easy to implement and easy to manage, without the overhead and cost inherent in traditional security solutions. Voltage IBE is ideal for use with financial services customers and medical patients who expect communication to be kept private and secure and also want ease-of-use and low-cost.Voltage IBE solutions are:

• Easy to implement and easy to manage – eliminates the overhead and costs inherent in traditional security solutions such as PKI
• Highly scalable – no storage of keys or messages, and no need to contact online servers; allows the solution to scale dramatically without the need for additional infrastructure.
• Easy to use – no need for end users to worry about keys, certificates or multiple inboxes.
• For more information on Voltage Security, the company and products, please see www.voltage.com.