Network Associates discontinues PGP encryption software

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/2814647.htm

Posted on Thu, Mar. 07, 2002     
 
NEW YORK (AP) - Software company Network Associates has stopped
selling PGP, the most widely used software for e-mail encryption,
after failing to find a buyer for the technology, a spokeswoman said
Thursday.

PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, is available free online for personal
use, a major reason the company saw little future in trying to make a
business of selling the software for corporate use, said spokeswoman
Jennifer Keavney.

``It is the leading encryption technology out there, but it's all
based on free downloads,'' she said.

The software allows users to send and receive encrypted e-mails that
can only be decoded by their intended recipients.

Network Associates laid off 18 employees last week when the PGP
division was dismantled. Most of the division's employees had already
been transferred to other parts of the company.

The layoffs were first reported on the Infoworld magazine's Web site.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company announced in October that it was
looking for a buyer to take PGP off its hands. Keavney said the
company received several offers, but none was attractive enough.

Part of the problem was that PGP encryption technology is used in a
number of other Network Associates products and the company needed to
maintain rights to use the technology even if it was sold to another
company, she said.

Network Associates will continue to fix bugs in the program for one
year, and will provide support for customers until the expiration of
the support contracts.

PGP is the creation of software engineer Phil Zimmerman, who released
it as ``freeware'' in 1991. He sold the commercial rights to Network
Associates in 1997.

---

On The Net:

Network Associates: http://www.nai.com
MIT's PGP page: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html
 



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