Clearswift Preps Upgraded Enterprise Filtering Suite

The product, dubbed EnterpriseSuite, contains three components: ClearPoint Policy Management Infrastructure (PMI) 6.0, a management infrastructure that can handle either worldwide or regional policies; the new ClearSecure, an encryption engine; and ClearEdge 4.9, a boundary SMTP filter.

The technology is slated to ship by the end of November, said Paul Rutherford, chief marketing officer of Clearswift, which has corporate headquarters in Reading, England, with a U.S. base in Waltham.

Pricing will vary depending on the number of users and branch locations supported, but Rutherford estimated an entry-level solution would start at $150,000. The vendor has a pending deal covering 170,000 users that could carry a price tag of $1.9 million, he said.

Mike McKinzie, president of Secur-tek, a year-old security solution provider in Irvine, Calif., that sells Clearswift products, welcomed the enterprise filtering policy management technology and said it would offer him add-on sales opportunities with existing customers.

"It's needed, and that's where the trend is going around e-mail. A lot of customers are looking to manage things from a real regional or global perspective," McKinzie said.

Clearswift is already working on EnterpriseSuite deals with four large systems integrators, although it plans to recruit smaller partners for the technology, Rutherford said. He cautioned, however, that the sales cycle for this product will be longer than the one for the company's MIMEsweeper technology, which most existing Clearswift resellers currently sell.

Solution providers can make a case for EnterpriseSuite by touting its ability to help corporate customers meet privacy legislation requirements, reduce legal liability, protect their intellectual assets and reduce their storage costs, he said.

In the future, Clearswift plans to add support for instant messaging to its management suite.

Clearswift also created an Active antispam service for accounts that have opted for the maintenance contract associated with its ClearEdge module. Like an antivirus update service, Active updates a company's spam filters based on actual traffic patterns from several seed accounts. Active supports integration with Symantec antivirus products.