HID, Dell display door to desktop

LAS VEGAS--Here at ISC West, HID Global elaborated on its September announcement of an expanded role in the access control space, including logical access control products and solutions in addition to physical access control for a greater level of converged security. Partner Dell has now incorporated HID on the Desktop into its Latitude E-Family notebook, meaning consumers today can use iCLASS cards for laptop and network access.

According to Dell senior product planner, security and software, Craig Durr, the partnership with HID is a big step forward because of the introduction of onboard contactless access card readers. “We have the goal of making this the most secure notebook available,” Durr said. “In doing our preliminary research, especially working with our enterprise customers and trying to understand what their needs were and where the opportunities were, there was a lot of interest and a lot of activity connected to logical access.”

HID on the Desktop enables use of an organization's existing physical access control cards for login to its IT infrastructure. According to Debra Spitler, vice president of HID Connect, such convergence goes a long way toward battling an ongoing problem with both physical and logical access control: the zero-sum nature of security versus convenience. “I think, too, this will really open up the marketplace because prior to Dell, any contactless reader, you were faced with customers having to buy portable readers,” Spitler said. “And the reader that you were having to carry in your notebook bag was pretty large. The last thing people want is another large device in their laptop bag.”