As more organizations establish Internet usage policies for their employees, Elron Software is beefing up its Internet usage monitoring tool to provide more robust back-end capabilities for network managers.
CommandView Internet Manager 5.0, which will ship at the end of this month, features better integration with Windows NT and support for Microsoft SQL Server.
The network sign-on for Internet Manager is now integrated with that of NT, making it easier for administrators to manage passwords and track end-user Internet usage.
SQL Server support was added for large organizations that need a more scalable system. Previously, Internet Manager only stored Internet usage data in a smaller Microsoft Access database.
Internet Manager lets organizations block employee access to certain kinds of Web sites, such as those offering pornography or gambling. Alternatively, administrators can use the software to alert users to inappropriate Internet usage and to compile regular usage reports.
International Data Corp. (IDC), a market research firm in Framingham, Mass., predicts that the market for Web usage monitoring software will grow 72% this year alone. By 2003, IDC predicts 3.9 million businesses will own this type of software and the market will reach $260 million per year.
Jeff Uslan, manager of information protection at 20th Century Fox, uses Internet Manager to monitor employee Web surfing rather than to block particular sites. Employees who visit forbidden sites receive messages on their screens. If an employee's usage of forbidden sites or overall Web surfing becomes excessive, human resources and legal staffs are called in.
"We treat everyone as an adult," Uslan says. "We use the Elron software to keep people honest. But we don't target anybody, and we don't let management use it to target anybody."
Uslan also has found the software useful for tracking which Web sites users are going to most often to see if it is worth bringing those capabilities into the company's intranet. "That product was very helpful in deciding to add PointCast locally to our services," Uslan says. "We found that we were using 50% to 60% of our bandwidth going to the PointCast site."
What Uslan likes best about Elron's software is that it has a simple graphical interface that anyone can use. His favorite feature in the new version is the ability, with one mouse click, to respond to an alert and prevent a user from visiting a forbidden site.
Pricing for Version 5.0 starts at $900 for a 25-user license.
RELATED LINKS
