Wave Systems' push to pull in corporate customers for its security software got a lift from IBM, which has given the thumbs-up to two of the company's new products.

"Wave's partnership with IBM will significantly help us in our objective to deliver open and interoperable solutions to business customers as trusted computing continues to evolve," Lark Allen, executive vice president of corporate development at Wave Systems, said in a statement.

The Document Manager Vault and SmartSignature security applications have been made compatible with IBM's Embedded Security Subsystem, Wave said. The Embedded Security Subsystem covers the extended hardware and software security features that are included in several of IBM's ThinkPad notebook and ThinkCentre desktop computers.

The Document Manager Vault application allows people to control how they store private data on personal computers, according to Wave. The system uses a set of software plug-ins for office applications that can encrypt and decrypt files on a PC.

The second tool, SmartSignature, uses IBM's Embedded Security Subsystem to protect a person's identity credentials and to provide digital signature capabilities.

Wave Systems claims that by using the two security tools, data can be protected--even if a user's IBM PC is lost or stolen.

The IBM move is part of its work with the Trusted Computing Group, a collaborative effort it helped found. The group's aim is to create industrywide security initiatives that offer people greater levels of privacy, trust and confidence in computing.

The recognition from Big Blue comes days after Wave announced another security software boost, from chip giant Intel.

Last week, Intel announced it was working with Wave Systems to develop software that will enable a chip called the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to handle security functions. The chip will be included on an Intel motherboard that's coming out in the fourth quarter of 2003.

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