Radicchio and mSign have joined forces in a bid to establish a global standard for digital signatures and an international framework for secure mobile transactions.
The two industry bodies say they will merge their international activities later this year, combining technology and research to target the multi-billion dollar international wireless market.
Over fifty of world's biggest names in technology, telecommunications and security providers have teamed up under the Radicchio banner with members to date including founders SmartTrust, Ericsson, EDS and Gemplus, network operators Vodafone and Orange, smart card manufacturers Schlumberger and Oberthur, plus MasterCard and Visa. Radicchio was created in September 1999 with a brief to promote the uptake of PKI in wireless transactions.
Founded in December 1999 by Brokat, charter members of mSign include Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, the mobile operators E-Plus Mobilfunk, D2-Vodafone, T-Mobil as well as VIAG Interkom, the smart card manufacturers Gemplus and Orga Kartensysteme, the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and Hewlett-Packard. The group has developed an application interface for connecting mobile phones with the Internet.
In a related announcement, Brokat says it has been granted a patent for a mobile digital signature process in Germany. The company says it is developing similar patents in the US and several other countries and intends to integrate the processes into its e-business software for marketing on a world-wide basis. It says the patent conforms to the technical specs laid down by the mSign consortium.