Fujitsu Teams Up with Novell

The computer hardware and general electronics Japanese manufacturer and vendor Fujitsu teamed up with the Linux developing company Novell to design and produce an USB security device. These devices, internally called by Fujitsu "pods", will provide medium-sized businesses and enterprises with a simple and cost effective solution to identify employees using a fingerprint recognition technology.

According to the news site ExtremeTech the "pods" jointly developed by Fujitsu and Novell will hit the market sometime during September and will come in two distinct flavors. The Administrator Kit is the expensive version, interested users having to part with $250 for it, while the cheaper Client Kit costs only $100, including the USB fingerprint reader. While there are only two models proposed, users may choose the exact reading technology involved, as Fujitsu MBF200 fingerprint touch sensor and the MBF320 swipe sensor will be both used for this product. In order to provide an easy way to manage the users and all related tasks, the pods are designed to operate with Novell's eDirectory's authentication management software that can be run from Microsoft's Windows, Netware or Linux.

Novell's software eDirectory is already used by more than 28.000 companies worldwide, with every company having from several hundred to several thousands users for this system. Even if the fingerprint authentication method can be spoofed, those systems are not designed to completely replace advanced security suites but only to ease the password management for users. Statistically, the system shows essentially no false accepts but the level of false rejects will be determined by a number of factors like the state of the sensor, according to Keith Horn, the chief operating officer at Fujitsu Microelectronics America. Dirt and dust may degrade the sensor's nominal capacity to capture 256 levels of grayscale at 500 dpi resolution.

The entire security solution is designed as an intermediate step after the primary login into the eDirectory service, allowing users to connect while roaming. Novell's SecureLogin and other NMAS (the shorthand for Modular Authentication Service) in use today may also benefit from it.