IronPort Delivers Reporting and Message Tracking in Single Appliance

| Jan 28, 2008 | Enterprise Security | Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analyst: Charlotte Dunlap

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

January 28, 2008 -- IronPort Systems, a Cisco business unit and a leading provider of enterprise spam, virus, and spyware protection, bolstered its award-winning messaging security appliances with significant updates to the powerful M-Series security management appliance. Already installed and operated at the world’s largest enterprises and Internet service providers, the updated M-Series features enhancements to its interactive reporting features, unique message tracking capabilities, and built-in data loss prevention functionality. Combined with IronPort's best-of-breed e-mail and Web security appliances, messaging administrators now have a single interface to manage their efforts to secure their networks against messaging threats.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on IronPort’s major release of the M-Series security management appliance, because the management tool has been revamped to support advanced reporting and message tracking at a single location, delivered on an order of magnitude greater scalability. We expect that this platform is being groomed for broader management support of other emerging technologies within Cisco.

• Vendor Importance: High to IronPort, because the management platform complements the company’s flagship e-mail security products and provides messaging administrators with advanced tools as they face a growing volume of security threats and e-mail traffic – both inbound and outbound.

• Market Impact: High on the secure messaging space, because IronPort is looking for ways to differentiate its secure messaging offering, and taking its M-Series from essentially a central repository for suspect messages to an advanced reporting and e-mail message tracking tool presents a threat to chief rivals Secure Computing and Symantec.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Leading messaging security competitors, including Secure Computing (IronMail) and Symantec (SMS), need to develop a strategy to unify policy management and reporting between Web and e-mail protocols for more centralized and consistent management. While two separate teams typically manage the Web and e-mail systems for large enterprises, efforts to provide a unified management platform will be an important differentiator and means for reaching mid-sized customers going forward.

• Competitors need to highlight their e-mail security products’ management capabilities as a way to differentiate their messaging security solutions. Management is an area of technology that e-mail security vendors have been remiss to provide much detail on, probably because most are in the midst of next-generation development. This is primarily because spam and malware threats in recent years have surged and vendors have had to respond to new management requirements including outbound messaging or DLP, which supports new compliance requirements.

Recommended End User / Customer Actions

• Large enterprise and ISP customers of IronPort should be pleased that the company continues to innovate and enhance its e-mail security appliance through the M-Series management appliance. This next-generation appliance release is driven completely by IronPort’s internal team, with no help from Cisco.

• Users managing multiple e-mail security appliances should compare the management features of IronPort and leading competitors including Secure Computing and Symantec. Users should look for centralized policy management, reporting (including granular reporting), message tracking, and integration with DLP/encryption.

• Mid-sized enterprises should look to these same companies to eventually support unified policy compliance between their e-mail security appliances and Web security appliances to simplify policy management and reporting.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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