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So, if roughly four out of five consumers who use
Internet access are not transacting business in some way,
what’s holding them back? What’s holding back
individual businesses? Why can’t they move
beyond the narrow transaction approach that typifies today’s
fledgling B2B initiatives? Why aren’t they building
full-scale supply chains and generating more revenue with
reduced costs?
The answer is clearly not about access,
ubiquity or cost. Nor is it about processing power, storage
capacity or bandwidth. It’s about confidence. Confidence
based on trust. Confidence in individual companies, confidence
in the underlying systems and technologies, and confidence
in the people with whom we do business.
We at RSA Security have called attention
to this issue of confidence. We’ve argued that our industry
needs to think about privacy and security, not as a problem
or a barrier to doing business, but — if done proactively
and correctly — as an enabler of business and a catalyst
for growth and profit.
Yet as the Forrester survey shows, confidence
in the Internet remains one of the chief problems our industry
must solve. This is our time to solve it.
I believe security is the core technology
that will drive Internet confidence and, therefore, business
opportunity. Security is a responsibility shared by all —
IT vendors, business end users, governments and individual
end users. All of us must act to implement security into the
fabric of what we do.
Here at RSA Security, we’re up to
the challenge. Our products are already helping thousands
of customers extend their networks, millions of users stay
connected while traveling and billions of transactions move
securely. We are addressing tough security issues through
our dedication to RSA Laboratories and the RSA® Conference,
as well as across the relationships we maintain with more
than 14,000 customers and more than 1,000 technology partners
around the world.
And through RSA Security’s Vantage
magazine, we continue to deliver “Insights on the business
of security.” In this issue you’ll find stories
on secure enterprise access and federated identity management
— two security technologies that stand to fundamentally
change business processes — as well as the announcement
of RSA Security’s new strategic partnership with Microsoft.
We believe that through our efforts to innovate,
educate and inform, we will inspire everybody to experience
the power and promise of the Internet.
With confidence.
We’re interested in hearing from
you. Let us know how we’re doing.
Sincerely,
Art Coviello Jr.
President and CEO, RSA Security
1. Source: “Net Access: Europe,”
Forrester Research, Inc., Jan. 2004
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