* Web-filtering packages that block access to forbidden sites
Our Special Focus this week takes a look at products and services many users have a sort of love/hate relationship with. That is Web-filtering packages that block access to forbidden sites.
Typically installed at the Internet perimeter as a stand-alone gateway, multi-function appliance or as software added to a firewall or proxy server, some $270 million worth of Web filtering software was snapped up by corporate customers last year, IDC says.
There are at least a dozen vendors selling this type of filtering product, with WebSense and SurfControl leading the market with about a 20% share each. Secure Computing and Symantec are ranked third and fourth respectively, each holds a share of about 6%. Web filtering is attracting start-ups. Webwasher AG, a Siemens spinoff, doubled its growth in two years to capture a 3% share – about 4,000 corporate customers.
The Web-filtering market is poised for growth, according to IDC, which forecasts a $364 million market by year-end and $893 million in 2007. In anticipation of such a rosy scenario, mergers in the Web-filtering arena are coming at a fast clip, too. In just the last few months, Secure Computing acquired N2H2, which held about 4% of the market. Secure-messaging vendor ZixCorp bought Web-filtering vendor Elron, which has 4,600 customers, to get into Web filtering. And systems management vendor NetIQ bought content-filtering vendor Marshal Software.
For customers, Web filtering is increasingly viewed as just part of the larger content-filtering battle that includes fighting spam, computer viruses and peer-to-peer applications that eat up bandwidth, and that cause even more trouble when left unchecked.
Some companies say one of their main reasons for filtering is to protect employees from going to Web sites where spyware, peer-to-peer applications or potentially harmful plug-ins could be downloaded.
For all these reasons and more you’ll be seeing a lot more of the stuff. For more see: https://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/1027specialfocus.html
