Plus: Tandberg announces software to make IP videoconferencing easier.
3Com announced last week plans to offer an e-mail security appliance targeted at small and midsize businesses. Slated for release this month, the 3Com Email Firewall will feature technology licensed from BorderWare, which makes the MXtreme line of e-mail appliances.
3Com has licensed BorderWare’s software for its new product but says it will manufacture the hardware itself. 3Com made some modifications to BorderWare’s software, such as simplifying the user interface and adding a wizard program to ease setup. Among the security features licensed from BorderWare are anti-spam and anti-virus filters, and protection from network worms, Trojans, and attacks such as denial-of-service and directory harvest.
Prices begin at about $2,800 for the appliance plus software licenses for 100 users.
Tandberg last week announced Expressway, software that is designed to solve one of the problems facing IP videoconferencing adoption: firewall and network address translation traversal. The H.323 protocol used by the majority of IP videoconferencing systems uses a number of random, non-standard firewall ports, which usually are closed.
Expressway, which is based on technology Tandberg acquired from Ridgeway Systems last year, funnels H.323 into just three registered ports, making it more firewall-friendly. Expressway requires a free software update on Tandberg’s MXP line of endpoints and for the endpoint to be registered to a Tandberg Border Gateway appliance that sits outside the firewall. Expressway’s technology is also embedded in Tandberg’s Gatekeeper, which can act as a firewall proxy for non-Tandberg videoconferencing endpoints. Expressway software updates will be available for all MXP endpoints this week, except for the Tandberg 150. Its update is due this spring.
Border Controller is priced starting at $7,700 for a five concurrent-call configuration. Gatekeeper costs $9,000 for five concurrent calls.
