SYDNEY, Australia -- 7 August 2001 -- Cisco Systems has joined forces with Asia Pacific company inter-touch, remote access provider, iPass, and leading bank, ANZ to create Australia's first secure, high speed, mobile network solution for the travelling workforce.
"The arrival of Cisco Internet Mobile Office promises to dramatically increase productivity while controlling costs for travelling employees," Mr Walsh said.
A central element of the Cisco Internet Mobile Office initiative is a range of wired and wireless products from Cisco, including an end-to-end security solution based on the Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology, which supports remote-access computing.
In an Australian first, ANZ, has enhanced the Cisco technology further by combining its Smartcard technology with the Cisco VPN and the iPass remote access solution.
ANZ Head of Business eCommerce, Mike Irvine said: "The ANZ solution allows the bank to benefit from a reduced overall cost of its global secure remote Internet access requirements whilst maintaining its very stringent security requirements."
"ANZ's solution uses the proven security features associated with Smartcards and will complement its broader introduction of digital certificate technology. It also supports the bank's expansion of other Smartcard based applications and improves workplace efficiency by providing mobility," he said. ANZ will continue to work with Cisco and iPass to make its solution more widely available in the market place.
Another key plank of the Cisco Internet Mobile Office initiative is the broadband services provided to leading hotels by Asia Pacific service provider, inter-touch.
inter-touch provides broadband services to leading four and five star hotel brands, airline lounges and serviced apartments in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Europe. A total solution provider in the hospitality industry, inter-touch will deploy Cisco's Building Broadband Solutions within the hotel environment. These comprise Long Reach Ethernet (LRE) technology and Building Broadband Service Manager (BBSM) software.
inter-touch currently works with Cisco infrastructure in 80 hotels throughout the globe and all are potential Cisco Internet Mobile Office candidates. These include hotel groups such as Six Continents Hotels, (formerly Bass Hotels and Resorts), Hyatt, Millennium and Copthorne International, Accor and Ritz Carlton.
Andrew Bailey, Chief Executive Officer for inter-touch said: "Cisco is the first major vendor to share our vision of creating seamless, end-to-end connectivity for business travelers back to their corporate resources.
"We are tremendously excited to be a part of this initiative as it maps perfectly with our core business and will add significant value to our partners," Mr Bailey said.
Technology alliances with companies such as iPass are another critical element of the mobile broadband solution, offering subscriber gateway and global roaming technologies. Cisco and iPass have teamed to create the industry's first Global Broadband Roaming Service, enabling a virtual global footprint for simplified, high-speed and secure remote access to corporate networks.
The availability of Global Broadband Roaming allows IT departments to deploy a single user interface for various types of remote access connectivity including dial-up, ISDN and broadband, making remote access services easier to use and therefore less expensive to support. The award-winning iPassConnect client software offers access to over 14,000 dial-up points of presence (POPs) in 150 countries in addition to the high-speed access points at hotels serviced by inter-touch.
"Together, iPass, Cisco and world leading service providers such as inter-touch are accelerating the adoption of secure, high-speed remote access solutions amongst corporate users," said Steve Terry, managing director of the Pacific Region for iPass. "iPass is proud to be a part of the Cisco Internet Mobile Office initiative to deliver broadband roaming throughout Asia."
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