Battling for budget: Security for the pragmatist

1. Require minimal overhead and infrastructure change. The ideal
    way to implement security is find the relevant processes already
    in use and extend them with security.

2. Be completely interoperable across organizations, platforms,
    applications and infrastructure. This alone has a huge impact on
    ROI.

3. Be compatible with existing and future IT investments,
    particularly if other security solutions may eventually be
    deployed.

4. Be simple and cost-effective to implement and support. Making
    security an extension of current applications and processes is one
    way to keep the impact minimal.

5. Be easy to use for the platform administrator and the desktop
    end user. The optimal solution is transparent to the user and
    requires minimal training.

Taking a wait-and-see stance could pay off, but the company that takes the pragmatic route and chooses a solution with minimal impact on the organization will see maximum ROI quickly.

Steve Crawford is chief marketing officer for PKWARE, Inc.