Mitsubishi Corp is teaming with Sunnyvale, California-based InterTrust Technologies Corp to develop a secure electronic commerce standard. InterTrust has developed the InterTrust Commerce Architecture which is a general purpose commerce and rights management architecture. Right now there’s only the two of them in the consortium, but more announcements can be expected in the next few weeks, according to David Van Wie, InterTrust’s senior VP research. Softbank Net Solutions, which is already an InterTrust partner elsewhere, is also said to be interested in joining. Six-year-old InterTrust makes its money at the moment by selling a so-called System Development Kit, which comprises an Internet commerce software node and a bunch of back-office technologies to support it, principally a financial and a usage clearing house system. The former does the financial settlements, and the latter tracks usage and collates information on intellectual property rights and such. The company has secure software container technology called DigiBox, which is used to house business rules, and any kind of digital content, and these are the things that are transferred between the electronic commerce consumer and vendors.
