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Sophos Builds Strong Momentum In North America
SecurityProNews
Staff Writer
2004-09-20
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One year after anti-spam acquisition, global security software provider reports record growth, global expansion and product integration.
With virus attacks becoming more sophisticated and spam volumes continually on the rise, Sophos continues to build strong momentum in North America with record growth, product leadership and expansion.
For Fiscal year 2003-2004, Sophos's bookings grew 42 percent worldwide and 82 percent in North America over the previous year, demonstrating the company's continued ability to capture market share and secure its overall market position. The acquisition of ActiveState in September 2003 gave Sophos a stronger competitive edge in the North American market as the first company to provide a single source anti-virus, anti-spam and email policy product for the email gateway. This has resulted in rapid customer adoption and 46 percent contribution to overall company growth, up from 24 percent last year.
"As demand for broad email hygiene protection grows at a rapid pace, customers are looking for single platforms, which combine virus and spam protection along with content filtering and denial of service attack prevention," said Matt Cain, senior vice president of Meta Group. "Vendors that can aggregate multiple hygiene services into a one solution offer customers economies of scale in procurement, management and operational overhead."
Sophos provides its technologies exclusively to businesses in over 150 countries, and this year it continued to deepen its expansive list of customers. The worldwide user base for Sophos's anti-spam product, PureMessage, increased by 23 percent over the past six months. The number of customers purchasing Sophos's consolidated anti-virus and anti-spam products increased 300 percent in the past 12 months. Sophos also expanded distribution of its products through OEM partnerships with Blue Coat, Finjan, OpenService and Critical Path among others.
"In this market, it is imperative to have a security solution in place that can quickly respond to the growing number of risks to our business," said Neil Buckley, information security manager, Partners HealthCare System. "Technology providers that understand the nuances of both spam and virus threats enable a stronger and faster response, decreasing our down time and loss of productivity. This kind of solution is critical to our overall security strategy."
Organizations continued to face threats and joint attacks from virus writers and spammers in 2004.
In September 2003, an analyst firm estimated that spam affected 100 percent of enterprises and that up to 50 percent of email was considered spam. In April 2004, the same firm reported that, according to its clients, up to 80 percent of incoming emails are spam*. Despite legislation, there is more spam than ever before and no evidence to support that such laws have reduced the spam problem. On the virus side, in the first six months of 2004, Sophos detected 4,677 new viruses, an increase of 21 percent compared with the same period last year.
To date, Sophos protects over 25 million users across all industries and around the world. This protection includes defending against over 93,875 known viruses, up 11 percent from last year. Sophos has also seen a 100 percent increase in spam volume over last year. Sophos's anti-spam software protects over 8.6 million corporate inboxes, filtering over 134 million messages daily.
Sophos solutions are uniquely positioned to protect against what Sophos and the industry view as converging threats, by providing a coordinated response to attacks through email filtering, virus scanning techniques and policy management.
"In the year since the acquisition, we've delivered on the market need to provide proactive protection through integrated messaging security and desktop products," said Steve Munford, president of Sophos Inc., who was appointed to lead the North American effort in January 2004. In the wake of a rapid proliferation of new threats, Munford cites the need for ongoing diligence and proactive defense.
"Threats and compliance issues are evolving and are becoming more global," continued Munford. "Virus writers are moving from a "digital spray paint" motivation to a financial motivation. There's an enormous need for the vendor community to adapt to new threats through proactive protection. With global support and virus and spam security labs worldwide, Sophos continues to lead in delivering new technologies to protect businesses at all points of the network."
Since the acquisition, Sophos has increased its employee base by 80 percent to nearly 900 today. Thirty percent of that growth has been in North America. Sophos opened its new $55 million global headquarters in October 2003 and continues on its 15-year track record of reporting consecutive years of steady growth and profit.
About the Author:
SecurityProNews is a daily online and email publication focusing on internet security issues.
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