Alacris idNexus™ management system and Axalto smart card product offerings deliver best-of-breed solution for enterprise smart card & digital certificate based identity assurance systems

Ottawa, April 11, 2005–Alacris® Inc., a leading developer of certificate management and identity assurance software products, and Axalto, the leading provider of microprocessor cards (Gartner 2003, Frost & Sullivan 2003), today announced they have entered into a strategic business partnership that offers customers a best-of-breed smart card and identity assurance management solution for enterprise Microsoft environments–both now and in the future.

The foundation of this partner relationship is built upon a successful track record of Alacris and Axalto working closely together over the last two years to provide full interoperability between Alacris’ idNexus for Microsoft Identity Assurance Management System and Axalto’s Cyberflex smart card products–and helping enterprise Windows customers cost effectively deploy integrated smart card and digital certificate based identity solutions.

“We are delighted to be establishing this strategic business partner relationship with Axalto”, says Bill Tompkins, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development. “This is a proven relationship that will extend the interoperability between our product offerings and present new opportunities for Axalto and Alacris to provide an integrated approach using best-of-breed authentication technologies with our identity assurance management system.”

“Broadening our relationship with Alacris was a logical choice recognizing their leadership position in providing integrated smart card and digital certificate life cycle management for Microsoft centric enterprises”, says Francois Lasnier, Vice President of Axalto’s Access Group, North America. “We are excited about the opportunities a more strategic relationship with Alacris will present to Axalto and our customers.”

This partnership comes at a time when smart cards are increasingly becoming an accepted and vital link in the chain of trust for secure identityauthentication. At Microsoft IT Forum 2004, the company’s premier European conference for information technology (IT) professionals, Bill Gates predicted that smart cards would be a key factor in eliminating dependency on passwords and reducing the costs and complexities associated with identity management. The combination of Alacris and Axalto product offerings fulfills this vision by providing a single management system integrating smart card platforms, Windows 2003 Certificate Authority and Active Directory.

Under this agreement, both parties will work closely together to further extend the range of Axalto authentication technologies supported by idNexus to include smart card applets, one time password solutions and the Cryptoflex.NET smart card–as well as increasing joint marketing and sales activities.

idNexus is an identity assurance management system focusing on providing increased flexibility, maximized trust, well-planned workflow processes and robust lifecycle management functionality associated with digital identities using advanced authentication technologies including digital certificates and smart cards.

About Alacris Inc.

Alacris Inc. is a developer of certificate management and identity assurance software products including idNexus, a certificate and smart card management product for the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Certificate Authority (CA) and the Entrust CA. Alacris has also developed the Alacris OCSP Identity Validation product that provides real-time certificate status information. Global industry leaders in industries such as Pharmaceutical, Health Care, Financial Services and Government have implemented Alacris products. For more information about Alacris, please visit our Web site at http://www.alacris.com.

Alacris is a registered trademark of Alacris Inc. All other products, logos or company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

About Axalto

Axalto (Euronext: NL0000400653–AXL) is the world’s leading provider of microprocessor cards (Gartner 2003, Frost & Sullivan 2003)–the key to digital networks–and a major supplier of point-of-sale terminals. Its 4500 employees serve customers in more than 100 countries, with worldwide sales reaching 3 billion smart cards to date. The company has more than 20 years of experience in smart card innovation and leads its industry in security technology and open systems.

Axalto continuously creates new generations of products for use in a variety of applications in the telecommunications, finance, retail, transport,entertainment, healthcare, personal identification, information technology and public sector markets. Smart card solutions provide convenience, security and privacy to public and private services operators, their customers and end users. For more info, please visit http://www.axalto.com.