Neoteris Broadens Security Platform

The security vendor, which has more than 65 solution provider partners, released its line of SSL-based VPN appliances about two years ago. Since then, several startups and established vendors have entered the space.

Neoteris, Mountain View, Calif., this week plans to launch the Neoteris Meeting Series at Burton Group Catalyst Conference 2003 in San Francisco. The new solution builds on the company's line of Instant Virtual Extranet (IVE) Access appliances, which provide remote workers with access to Web-enabled corporate resources via SSL-secured browser sessions, Neoteris executives said.

"We've seen a need for more than access to resources. There's a need for people to communicate when they're remote, more than by phone and e-mail," said Andrew Harding, technical marketing manager at Neoteris.

Meeting Series allows enterprises to conduct online meetings and provide realtime collaboration more securely and economically than hosted service solutions or custom extranets, Harding said. Like the company's other appliances, the Meeting Series doesn't require client software deployment or additional servers.

Companies can use the new product line to make confidential presentations, edit technical specifications, and allow customer service representatives to troubleshoot problems, Harding said. It allows network managers to control online meetings, track users and be assured that no data was compromised, he added.

Neoteris is on the mark with Meeting Series, said Lou Carli, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Cadre, a Cincinnati-based security solution provider. His firm has had huge success selling Neoteris' SSL-based VPN appliances and hoped the vendor would broaden its offerings.

"They [Neoteris] needed to come out with new products and services," he said. "From a reseller point of view, this really opens up opportunities."

Carli said many different companies could use the new appliance: "It's cost-effective and efficient for on-the-fly meetings."

Neoteris is positioning Meeting Series as a direct competitor to WebEx, the hosted collaboration service, Carli said. Hosted solutions like WebEx open up security holes while the Neoteris device zeroes in on security, he added.

"Usually companies are sharing vital information,you need to protect that [collaborative] environment," he said.

The Meeting Series is available either as a software upgrade for existing Neoteris IVE appliance users or as a dedicated Meeting 3000 appliance.

The Meeting 3000 supports 100 to 250 users. Three upgrades to support up to 100 users will be available July 23. Upgrade prices run between $2,995 and $29,995, depending on the number of users. The appliance is slated to be available in December. Prices range from $29,995 to $59,995.

Harding said he expects to see interest in the new Meeting Series among a variety of verticals, including finance, manufacturing and health care.

The company plans to begin training its channel partners on the series immediately after the product launch in December.

Aside from WebEx types of services, Neoteris initially appears to have slim competition in the market for securing collaborative applications with its appliance, said David Kosiur, an analyst at the Burton Group. "This is a pretty wide open market for them to get into," Kosiur said.

Neoteris may find competition in the future from Microsoft, which has plans to provide strong authentication of users and encrypting traffic for collaborative applications in Windows, he said.

Other collaboration solutions include Groove Networks' Desktop Collaboration Software, which features strong, automatic encryption.