Montreal September 18, 2001 Silanis Technology, which produces electronic signature and approval management solutions, was recently profiled by Gartner Inc. and named the leading producer of electronic approval software for internal business applications. The research note also highlighted the company's B2B solution.
Gartner looked at both Silanis' ApproveIt Desktop and ApproveIt Collaboration Server solutions. ApproveIt Desktop is a PKI-enabled application that uses existing cryptographic services such as MS-CAPI or an installed third-party PKI to create digital certificates for user authentication. It uses a proprietary technology to permanently embed an audit trail (including the electronic signature approval and related user and data authentication) in a document, so that it cannot be extracted or altered. Any change to the document invalidates the signature.
The passing of last year's U.S. Electronic Signature in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN), granted electronic signatures the same legal status as their pen and paper counterparts, and paved the way for Silanis' ApproveIt Collaboration Server in the B2B environment. This server enables organizations to distribute a plug-in needed to securely verify and add legally binding e-signature approvals to documents at no cost to the business partner.
"Through a link sent by email, a business partner can register on the server and download desktop tools to sign documents," Gartner's McKibben wrote. "The primary value in this application is reducing the time (potentially weeks or months) and the costs of exchanging documents between trading partners."
General Motors Acceptance Corporation Commercial Mortgage (GMACCM), the largest provider of commercial mortgages in North America, is Silanis' first ApproveIt Collaboration Server customer. Having gone completely paperless in 2000, using ApproveIt Desktop across its 50 worldwide offices and 1,800 employees, GMACCM have extended the benefits of electronic signatures to their partners, suppliers, contractors and loan appraisers as part of their 2001 e-business initiatives.
"With 170 new government and commercial clients since January 2001, we've seen a 100 percent increase in revenues compared to the same period last year," said Tommy Petrogiannis, president of Silanis. "This illustrates the growing demand for our technology, and the need for organizations to reduce overhead costs, increase efficiency and maximize employee resources."
