DigitalPersona Fingers Channel for Sensor

The Redwood City-based security specialist and vendor of the U.are.U Fingerprint Sensor security system is sweetening its partner program to incent solution providers to deliver the technology to more end-user fingers working in the enterprise and SOHO markets.

The program includes lead generation, discounted demo units, free training and discounts for bulk purchases.

DigitalPersona sells exclusively through the channel and will work with solution provider partners to create and sell value-added solutions using its products: the Fingerprint Sensor, priced at $149; the Fingerprint Keyboard, which includes a built-in sensor and sells for $199; and a software development kit, priced at $1,499.

DigitalPersona also plans to release a sleeker, smaller Fingerprint Sensor unit in July, said Linda May Haskell, DigitalPersona's vice president of worldwide sales.

The company sells its products directly to solution providers and through D&H Distributing at 25 percent to 30 percent off the MSRP.

"One of the great advantages of biometrics and fingerprint technology is that it's a great differentiator," Haskell said. "With a biometrics option, solution providers can make margin of 50 [percent to 400 percent, depending on how they're using the technology."

Steve Tang, sales manager at HyperData, a Walnut, Calif.-based manufacturer of ruggedized laptops, said the DigitalPersona products helped add a new dimension to his company's solutions. "DigitalPersona has opened a brand-new market for us," Tang said. "Without that device, we wouldn't have gotten attention for our core line of products."

HyperData has installed fingerprint-sensor technology into wireless mobile computers for the military, police departments, field engineers and schools. The company is currently working with state election boards on voter identification and with car manufacturers to integrate finger sensors into the alarm systems of luxury cars, a solution Tang claims will bring HyperData margins of more than 500 percent.

"Solution providers can add fingerprint-sensor technology to so many applications, and then define what [their margins will be," Tang said.

DigitalPersona solution providers have also integrated the technology into 500 scanners in Coca Cola's marketing department in Mexico, hundreds of ATMs in Bolivia and medicine dispensers in some of the largest health-care facilities in the United States. Gartner Dataquest predicts the overall security software market will reach $4.3 billion this year, up from $3.7 billion in 2001, and will grow to $6.2 billion in 2005.

About 50 percent of sales by solution providers are to end users looking for a single sign-on to computing sites, Haskell said.

"Once you register, one fingerprint replaces all of your passwords," she said. "If you ever worked in a corporation or in an IT department, you can see that there is a lot of expense wasted on answering questions about passwords and staying on top of them."

DigitalPersona's latest product is U.are.U Online, a software development kit for adding fingerprint recognition to Web applications. DigitalPersona worked with a solution provider that used the product to automate a drug-testing submission process for a large pharmaceutical firm, said Brian Farley, DigitalPersona's channel sales manager.

"The FDA allowed the company to submit the trial results electronically because they were able to enhance the security of the Web site by validating those results with a fingerprint," saving the company hundreds of dollars in labor and material, Farley said. "There are a lot of services that companies have been afraid to bring to the Web," he said. "But when you add the element of fingerprint recognition, it now becomes a viable online solution."