Product Code Database
PKWARE, Inc. is an American enterprise data protection software company that provides discovery, classification, masking and encryption software, along with data compression software. The company is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. PKWARE was founded in 1986 by Phil Katz, co-inventor of the ZIP standard. Thompson Street Capital Partners acquired PKWARE Inc. in 2020.
Following a legal settlement with Systems Enhancement Associates Inc., the owners of ARC, Katz stopped distributing PKARC. He released, as an open format, his own compression program, which he called PKZIP, in January 10, 1989. PKZIP was the first program to use the new ZIP file format, which Katz developed in conjunction with Gary Conway and subsequently released into the public domain.
PKWARE grew in its early years through business with large corporations. The ZIP format proved so popular that it became the de facto standard for data compression and remains in use throughout the world after more than 30 years.
SecureZIP, a program that combined PKZIP's data compression with enhanced encryption functionality, was released in 2004. In the following years, PKWARE continued to add support for large and small platform operating systems and introduced new features for both PKZIP and SecureZIP.
In 2012, PKWARE released Viivo, a cloud storage encryption product to help customers secure data stored on Dropbox and other cloud storage services. Viivo received attention for having been developed outside of traditional methods in an effort toward "disruptive innovation" in the emerging cloud security market.
PKWARE was purchased by Thompson Street Capital Partners in May 2020. After acquiring Dataguise in November 2020, the companies were merged under the single PKWARE name. Products from both legacy companies were renamed according to the new PK branding structure and the combined company received new branding to support the changes. These expanded capabilities enable PKWARE to offer data protection for structured data, unstructured data and semi-structured data.
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| ZIP Reader is a free Windows utility. Any ZIP file can be opened with the reader program, regardless of where it was created. To open an archive, the user can drag and drop the desired zip file over the program, and it will extract. A second method is to simply select which file to extract from within the utility. An email address is required to download ZIP Reader from the PKWARE website. |
| PKZIP is a software utility that allows the compression and decompression of multiple files and folders into a single archive or multiple archives. The name combines the initials of company founder Phil Katz with “zip”, a reference to the software's speed. Originally, PKZIP was written as shareware for Microsoft DOS. Since its creation, PKWARE has expanded support of PKZIP to Windows Desktop, Windows Server, UNIX, Linux, and IBM i and zSeries platforms. Later versions of PKZIP include strong encryption algorithms to accommodate security needs. |
| SecureZIP was released in 2004 as an extension of PKZIP. SecureZIP contained the same compression and passphrase protection as PKZIP but also introduced digital signature authentication and digital certificate-based encryption.
In 2006, the company added a new option called SecureZIP PartnerLink, through which customers can become "sponsors" and provide an unlimited number of SecureZIP Partner licenses to the organization's business partners. The Windows Observer - PKWARE Sets SecureZIP Free with PartnerLink
PKWARE added support for OpenPGP encryption in 2011, along with new features that allow SecureZIP to integrate with data loss prevention technology. In 2012, the company released mobile versions of SecureZIP for Android and iOS devices. |
| Viivo, a cloud encryption service, was released in 2012. PKWARE made an end-of-life announcement for Viivo in 2017, with support continuing until July 1, 2018. |
| Launched in 2016, Smartcrypt became PKWARE's newest data protection tool, combining data discovery, encryption, and encryption key management. Smartcrypt includes a web-based management console, from which administrators can apply encryption policies across an organization's user devices and network resources. |
Rebranded in 2021 after the acquisition of Dataguise, the PK Protect suite encompasses all former PKWARE and Dataguise products and offers tools for managing personal data and other sensitive data through data discovery, classification, masking, redaction, and encryption. PK Protect includes the following product categories, which are offered to be purchased individually or as a bundle:
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In 2001 and 2005, PKWARE was awarded patents for patching technology used within PKZIP products.Patent 6,289,509 and Patent 6,952,823 Also in 2005, PKWARE was granted a patent for methods used to manage .ZIP files within the Windows file manager and Outlook.Patent 6,879,988
In total, PKWARE holds four patents, has over fourteen pending patents and, as of May 2020, is referenced in over two hundred patents.
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