ARX and Hummingbird Ltd. Partner to Offer CoSign® Electronic Signature Solutions to the Enterprise

Petach Tikva, Israel - November 14, 2005

Algorithmic Research (ARX), a leading worldwide provider of electronic signatures and data security solutions today, announced a business partnership with Hummingbird Ltd. (NASDAQ: HUMC, TSX: HUM), a leading global provider of integrated enterprise content management (ECM) and network connectivity solutions. 

The ARX / Hummingbird partnership provides customers with an integrated solution that enables Hummingbird Enterprise™ users to electronically sign documents within applications such as Microsoft Word, InfoPath, Excel and Adobe Acrobat. Using electronic signatures, organizations may replace handwritten signatures, sealing documents with legally-binding signatures as well as saving the costs and time associated with paper-based processes. 

"CoSign's tight integration with Hummingbird Enterprise offers users a turnkey electronic signature solution that for the first time enables them to guarantee the data integrity and signer authenticity of all the documents they handle," says Noam Ziv, VP of Business Development, ARX. 

"Organizational concerns relating to cost, time and security, typically associated with paper-based signatures and hardcopy documents, result in a low TCO, virtually zero management, zero logistic penalties and a speedy ROI," adds Ziv.

Combining CoSign’s electronic signatures with PKI (Public Key Infrastructure), a mature and proven technology, ensures signer authenticity, data integrity and non-repudiation of documents generated within Hummingbird Enterprise. Compliance with worldwide legal and security regulations, such as the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 for the Bio-Pharma market, HIPAA for the healthcare industry, and others, is also ensured.

CoSign electronic signatures offer users a unique feature - CoSign Worldwide verifiable signatures. With CoSign, signed documents may be sent to partners and customers, allowing them to validate the signatures within applications such as Microsoft Word, InfoPath, Excel and Adobe Acrobat without the installation of any 3rd party applications.

"We have seen a growing customer demand for electronic signature solutions initiated both by legislation requirements as well as the need to save on time and costs related to printing, signing and mailing documents," says Tony Heywood, Senior VP EMEA, Hummingbird. "The addition of CoSign to the Hummingbird partner portfolio of solutions ideally positions us to meet this demand."

CoSign-enabled organizations include the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) Surveillance Authority, which uses CoSign to digitally-sign documents and e-mails exchanged with external parties. The EFTA Surveillance Authority already has in place a case handling system based on a Hummingbird document-management solution, but found itself printing, signing and mailing documents, due to the need for a signature. The EFTA Surveillance Authority plan to eliminate those hurdles and save the costs associated with all the paperwork by using CoSign electronic signatures. This solution ensures signer authenticity, and the data integrity and non-repudiation of the documents generated using Hummingbird Enterprise.

Hummingbird Enterprise provides an integrated platform for enterprise content management that provides global organizations with solutions to manage business interaction information such as documents, records, virtual deal room exchanges, discussions, e-mail or financial data - linking business processes, information and people. Hummingbird solutions are designed as modular applications that are fully interoperable with each other, enabling customers to incrementally build an enterprise content management solution to meet their evolving information needs in a cost effective manner.