Hitachi Cable, Ltd. has announced that it will begin providing its Apresia*1 authentication switch as hardware for use in new solutions for management of employee attendance and location, after confirming the interoperability of Apresia with the Zaseki Navi*2 seating-display software from Hitachi, Ltd. (headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Kazuo Furukawa).

In recent years, businesses have endeavored to increase their organizational competitiveness by energizing communication between employees, through use of the latest network infrastructures and through planning office layouts. However, since it is difficult to ascertain employee attendance in cases such as when using office layouts employing free-address systems, such businesses have faced difficulties such as the need to seek out individual employees by mobile phone in order to contact them.

While some businesses have adopted presence services that use computer terminals and other devices as a means for checking employee attendance and location, in general most presence services have involved limitations such as the requirement that individual employees update their own status and the inability to display employee attendance and location automatically.

To resolve such issues, Hitachi Cable has confirmed the interoperability of the Apresia authentication switch with the Zaseki Navi seating-display software from Hitachi, Ltd.

The Apresia lineup is a series of Ethernet*3 switches with network authentication features that make possible the integration of high-security networks, and also enable identification of which users have connected to which networks, and at which times.

Zaseki Navi is a piece of software that makes it possible to identify user names and seating locations and display user names on the relevant locations on office layout diagrams, as well as ascertain the seating locations of individuals and check on whether they are in their seats or absent by inputting names to search for, all based on information concerning the state of a user's PC connection to the network. Through coordination with a wide range of network devices and software, Zaseki Navi makes it possible to provide various attendance-management solutions. Since this enables to check whether someone is actually present without requiring any special tasks, the best way to contact such person-in person or via telephone or e-mail-can be chosen after first checking the status, which enables more effective communication.

This confirmation of interoperability between Apresia and Zaseki Navi has led to provision of attendance-management solutions via networks with even stronger security.

In the future, Hitachi Cable plans to expand further its share of the Ethernet switch markets for enterprise and service-provider use, by enhancing its lineup across a broad range of networking solutions and utilizing the sales channels of Apresia sales partners, in coordination with each of its partners.

*1	Apresia is a registered trademark of Hitachi Cable, Ltd. in Japan.
*2	Zaseki Navi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd.
*3	Ethernet is a product name of Xerox Corp. Ethernet is a registered trademark of Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. in Japan.