In a press statement, Robert Legge, Senior Vice President for Baltimore Technologies stated: 'Dubai is the IT centre in the Middle East with Government and enterprises being amongst the leading adopters of e-business practices. The opening of the Dubai office, Baltimore Technologies' first office in the Middle East, recognises the importance of the market and the increasing need and opportunities for e-security. We look forward to working closely with customers and partners such as ComTrust in the region, enabling them to build security infrastructures for business growth.'

Baltimore Technologies has struck up a partnership with ComTrust, the business arm of Etisalat, the United Arab Emirate's national telecommunications company. Baltimore's contract is to provide a safe platform for ComTrusts e-commerce services leading to the delivery of the UAE's first public key infrastructure (PKI).

ComTrust will manage the PKI system to meet the needs of e-commerce firms and this will provide a platform for Baltimore to deliver its UniCERT certificate management system. Tariq Habib, ComTrust's chief technology officer, said: 'UniCERT, which is open and flexible, addresses our technical specifications of becoming a commercial certificate authority and provides us with the highest level of trust for the transmission and storage of confidential information on public networks.' Together the PKI system and the UniCert will be a boost to the region and will promote a secure infrastructure for e-commerce.