Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. was a company that produced software for

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

and

Internet security Internet security is a branch of computer security. It encompasses the Internet, browser security, web site security, and network security as it applies to other applications or operating systems as a whole. Its objective is to establish rules ...

. The company was acquired by

Safenet SafeNet, Inc. was an information security company based in Belcamp, Maryland, United States, which was acquired in August 2014 by the French security company Gemalto. Gemalto was, in turn, acquired by Thales Group in 2019. The former SafeNet' ...

Inc, in 2009. Its corporate headquarters are located in Belcamp, Maryland.

History

Aladdin Knowledge Systems was founded in 1985 by Jacob (Yanki) Margalit, when he was 23 years old; he was soon joined by his brother Danny Margalit, who took the responsibility for product development at the age of 18, while at the same time completing a Mathematics and Computer Science degree at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

. In its early years the company developed two product lines, an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

package (which was dropped early on) and a hardware product to prevent unauthorized software copying, similar to

(DRM). Margalit raised just $10,000 as an initial capital for the company. The digital rights management product became a success and by 1993 generated sales of $4,000,000. The same year that company had an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

raising $7,900,000. In 2004 the company's shares were also listed on the

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE; ), colloquially known as The Bursa, is the only public stock exchange in Israel and a public company itself, listed on its own exchange since August 1, 2019. It is regulated by the ''Securities Law (1968)'' a ...

. By 2007 the company's annual revenues reached over $105 million. In mid-2008, Vector Capital was attempting to purchase Aladdin. Vector initially offered $14.50 per share, but Aladdin's founder Margalit refused the offer arguing that the company was worth more. Aladdin's shareholders agreed on the merger in February 2009 at $11.50 per share, in cash. In March 2009, Vector Capital acquired Aladdin and officially merged it with SafeNet.

Corporate timeline

* 1985 – Aladdin Knowledge Systems was established * 1993 – Aladdin held an

* 1996 – Aladdin acquired the German company ''FAST'' * 1998 – Aladdin patented

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

smart card A smart card (SC), chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card), is a card used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an Embedded system, embedded integrated circuit (IC) chip. Many smart ...

-based authentication tokens * 1998_Dec – Aladdin acquired the software protection business of EliaShim * 1999 – Aladdin acquired the eSafe "content security" business of EliaShim * 2000 – Aladdin acquired 10% of ''Comsec'' * 2001 – Aladdin acquired the ESD assets of ''Preview Systems'' * 2005 – Aladdin completed second offering – 2,000,000 shares with net proceeds of $39m * 2009 – Aladdin was acquired by Vector Capital. * 2010 – Aladdin was merged with Vector Capital's

SafeNet SafeNet, Inc. was an information security company based in Belcamp, Maryland, United States, which was acquired in August 2014 by the French security company Gemalto. Gemalto was, in turn, acquired by Thales Group in 2019. The former SafeNet' ...

Products

DRM

Aladdin's HASP product line is a DRM suite of protection and licensing software with 40% global market share, used by over 30,000 software publishers. It is used across many platforms (

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

). HASP, which stands for ''Hardware Against Software Piracy'', was the company's first product and evolved into a complete digital rights management suite, that includes a software only option and a back office management application, in recent years also

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

capability.

Internet security

In the late 1990s the company started diversifying and began offering

and network security products, offering two product lines:

Digital identity management

eToken, portable device for

two-factor authentication Multi-factor authentication (MFA; two-factor authentication, or 2FA) is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or Application software, application only after successfully presenting two or more distin ...

, pasdigital

identity management Identity and access management (IAM or IdAM) or Identity management (IdM), is a framework of policies and technologies to ensure that the right users (that are part of the ecosystem connected to or within an enterprise) have the appropriate acce ...

, mainly deployed as a

token.

Network security

eSafe a line of integrated network security and

content filtering An Internet filter is software that restricts or controls the content an Internet user is capable to access, especially when utilized to restrict material delivered over the Internet via the Web, Email, or other means. Such restrictions can be appl ...

products, protecting networks against cracked and pirated Internet-borne software.

References

External links

SafeNet Inc. Data Protection & Software Licensing website

Content Security – eSafe

eToken PASS – Aladdin Product
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111015233847/http://www.safenet-inc.com/products/data-protection/two-factor-authentication/etoken-pass/ , date=2011-10-15
Aladdin Knowledge Systems website
Information technology companies of Israel Computer security software companies Copyright enforcement companies Digital rights management Companies based in Petah Tikva Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Software companies established in 1985 1985 establishments in Israel