Hackensack, NJ and San Jose, CA – September 18, 2006 – Ness Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: NSTC), a global provider of IT services and solutions, and Apere, Inc., a leading developer of network security solutions, today announced a strategic partnership. Under the agreement, Ness will leverage Apere's Identity Managed Access Gateway (IMAG) to help its growing healthcare and financial services customer base meet intellectual property protection and regulatory requirements.
Apere's flagship product, IMAG, combines two primary features – identity management and access control - into a single network appliance. IMAG manages identities across multiple, disparate identity stores throughout the network, and controls access to network resources based on identity policies.
IMAG provisions, manages and protects access from partner networks to enterprise resources by automatically identifying network and application access rights. This enables enterprises to seamlessly protect and document access to their resources from partners and branch offices.
“Identity management continues to be a key issue for many of our financial services and healthcare customers,” said Rajkumar Velagapudi, President of Ness Innovative Business Services (Ness IBS). “Implementing an infrastructure that can maintain strict control over information and monitor regulatory compliance, typically involves large capital outlays and many months or years of effort before any value is delivered. Utilizing Apere’s IMAG appliance, Ness will offer its customers the ability to monitor compliance at the network level in a matter of weeks.”
The combination of Apere’s IMAG solution and Ness’ extensive expertise in applications and networks will be leveraged to address the complex intellectual property protection issues and regulatory requirements faced by Ness’ financial and healthcare outsourcing customers, both onshore and offshore. Ness and Apere will work together to assess customers' specific needs, and will define and implement a comprehensive solution using Apere’s IMAG.
“Enabling enterprises to meet changing regulatory requirements and protect corporate assets was our primary objective in developing IMAG,” said Ram Jayam, founder and CEO of Apere. “We’re very proud to be partnering with Ness Technologies, a worldwide leader in the IT services market, to help their customers meet those overwhelming challenges with a solution that efficiently provisions, protects and audits access to enterprise networks.”
Ness IBS offerings for the financial services and healthcare industries include solutions for wealth management, transfer agency and investment management operations, research and trade operations, payer/provider revenue management, customer software engineering and packaged products implementation. Ness IBS clients include Franklin Templeton, Standard & Poor’s, Finaplex Inc., PayPal, Wells Fargo Bank, Weiss Ratings, ING Investments, Pfizer, Sanofi, Merck and Kaiser Permanente, among others.
About Ness Technologies
Ness Technologies (NASDAQ: NSTC) is a global provider of end-to-end IT services and solutions designed to help clients improve competitiveness and efficiency. Ness specializes in outsourcing and offshore, systems integration and application development, software and consulting, and quality assurance and training. With 7,000 employees, Ness maintains operations in 15 countries, and partners with over 100 software and hardware vendors worldwide. For more information about Ness Technologies, visit www.ness.com.
About Apere, Inc.
Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Apere was founded in 2004 by successful serial entrepreneurs who leveraged their experience and expertise in the security, IC design and software markets to create the industry’s first Identity Managed Access Gateway designed to address the security of sensitive data while significantly reducing the management burden placed on IT staff. The IMAG product line is available exclusively through Apere’s Team Partners who are certified security experts with the knowledge and resources needed to solve enterprise security issues with the IMAG security appliance platform. For more information, visit the company website at www.apere.com, contact Apere via phone at 877-875-9476 or via email at contact@apere.com.
Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements often are preceded by words such as “believes,” “expects,” “may,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “intends,” “assumes,” “will” or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements reflect management’s current expectations, as of the date of this press release, and involve certain risks and uncertainties. Ness’ actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward looking statements as a result of various factors. Some of the factors that could cause future results to materially differ from the recent results or those projected in forward-looking statements include the “Risk Factors” described in Ness’ Annual Report of Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 15, 2006.
