Microsoft acquires Ottawa-based Alacris

Microsoft acquires Ottawa-based Alacris

World’s largest software company Microsoft has announced plans to acquire the ID management partner Alacris in order to improve on its security efforts in their various applications. Alacris has expertise in providing identification and access management technologies for smart cards and digital certificates.

This news comes just when the company is strengthening its position in the market with upgrades for some of the most popular applications in the market, which are developed by Microsoft. The company is expected to launch the Vista edition of Windows Server in 2007, which Microsoft claims would be more secure and reliable than ever before.

Both the companies entered into a partnership two years ago with Alacris developing IDNexus technology for Microsoft. IDNexus is integrated with Microsoft’s certificate services technologies in areas such as smart card and PKI management. It also powers the very popular Active Directory service of the company.

The latest version of this application (in its version 3 now) was launched last July. This update simplified automatic update of smart card-based certificates without reissuing them. It also now fully supports operational temporary smart cards that are issued when original ones are lost.