With a series of announcements over the past couple of weeks that culminates with a joint announcement with RSA Security scheduled for Feb. 17, PKWare is making headway on its vision of seeing the ubiquitous ZIP format used enterprise wide for file encryption as well as compression.

PKWare has announced new versions of its PKZIP product for Windows, Unix, OS/400 and MVS platforms. The idea is to promote interoperability among file compression and encryption products that work across the range of enterprise platforms, says Stephen Crawford, chief marketing office for PKWare, based in Redwood Shores, Calif.

PKWare first added encryption capabilities to PKZIP last July, with a version that worked with Windows clients. The product is intended to give users a simple way to encrypt files attached to email messages -- by merely clicking on an icon in their Outlook client. Alternatively, the product can be configured to automatically compress and encrypt all attachments. Recipients can open the attachments using a password sent out-of-band, or by using digital certificates.

PKZIP 6.0 Professional Edition adds support for Lotus Notes to Outlook, along with support for RSA's BSAFE encryption software, adding to its existing support for the Microsoft Crypto API (CAPI). Additionally, the new version includes a Desktop Security module that enables users to employ compression and encryption outside of email systems, such as when backing files up or using FTP. Version 6.0 also now supports the federal government's 256-bit AES encryption standard.

PKWare also added support for AES to the MVS and OS/400 versions of PKZIP, enabling users to compress and encrypt files stored on IBM mainframe and minicomputers. Similarly, the new PKZIP for Unix Professional Edition 6.0 supports AES as well as BSAFE. It is available for IBM AIX, HP-UX, Sun Solaris and Linux x86 platforms.

With respect to RSA, the joint announcement later this month is expected to expand on the strategic alliance the two companies announced last November, which resulted in the addition of BSAFE support to a number of PKWare products. Going forward, RSA will offer some PKWare products under the RSA label.

Crawford says the suite of PKZIP products is appealing to users for a number of reasons. Ease of use is a key one, as most users are already familiar with the ZIP format, and widespread deployment of ZIP tools is another. PKZIP also provides persistent security, he says, because files can be encrypted not only in transit, but also in storage and if they are forwarded. That, however, assumes a recipient doesn't decrypt the file and forward or store it in the clear.

Pricing for the Windows version of PKZIP starts at $100 per user, but falls dramatically in volume. The Unix, OS/400 and MVS versions are priced according to the size of the machine on which they run. Prices start at less than $200 for Unix, in the "high hundreds" for OS/400 and at less than $10,000 for MVS, Crawford says.