Addamax Inc, the software house specialising in secure Unix implementations, has jumped into the race to launch the first commercialised 80386-based trusted Unix workstation. Under an exclusive marketing agreement, Addamax will be taking over Harris Corp’s Compartmented Mode Workstation – CMW – technology, now years in development and currently under evaluation at the National Computer Security Centre, NCSC, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, and turning it into a marketable product. The project is targeted at an Orange Book B1 security rating and includes a trusted version of the X Window System, which is known to be a difficult item to secure. The evaluation is expected to to be completed later this year. This new CMW software, still unchristened, will constitute a second product line for the Champaign, Illinois concern, independent of its own internally developed B1st technology which was recently rejected by the Open Software Foundation as the way to secure the OSF/1 operating system. Secureware, Addamax’s competitor and the Foundation’s choice for security, already has Compartmented Mode Workstation, which was believed to have been a factor in its selection at the very least because it is likely to be specified in a number of large upcoming governments procurements. However, according to Secureware president Michael McChesney, the Software Foundation did not purchase his Compartmented Mode technology, only the ability to secure the OSF/1 kernel. Addamax, which has just received $2.5m in third-round funding from existing investors to retire debt and launch the new product, believes it is at most 45 to 60 days away from a solid beta version and reportedly already has purchase orders in hand for it. Addamax reckons an 80386-based product will give it a leg up in the security market because of the vast number of Intel based machines in government sites, the principal client for trusted systems. These boxes could be retrofitted with Addamax’s new technology, the company said. Secureware, on the other hand, has not given a 80386 version of its current Macintosh II system a high priority because it lacks a procurement vehicle.
