Barracuda Attacks Channel With New Product, Program

The Barracuda Spam Firewall is a separate piece of hardware that sits in front of an e-mail server that shields it from spam mail and viruses. While other security companies offer this type of protection, Barracuda's product is the first plug-and-play hardware solution that combines spam and virus protection at a starting price of $1,199, thousands less than competitive products, and no per-user licensing fees, said Dean Drako, Barracuda president and CEO.

"We focused on two things with this product: ease of use and the second is price," he said. "We believe the spam/virus firewall market will go the same way the [general] firewall market has gone, which is commodity pricing."

The Barracuda Spam Firewall offloads the spam and virus filtering from the mail server, helping to enhance server performance. It is compatible with all the e-mail servers on the market, and utilizes open source virus and spam solutions along with eight defense layers to provide an extemely high level of protection, Drako said. An optional subscription service--Energize Update--automatically updates the virus definition, spam rules, realtime blacklist and realtime fingerprint checks in the filter.

The product comes in three flavors: the Spam Firewall 200, priced at $1,199, which supports up to 1,000 users and 1 million messages per day; the Stam Firewall 300, priced at $1,899, which supports up to 2,000 users and 4 million messages per day; and the Spam Firewall 400, priced at $3,999, which supports up to 10,000 users and 10 million messages per day. All the products can be clustered for higher capacity customers, Drako said.

Barracuda's Spam Defense Reseller Program, which is centered around the Spam Firewall, offers two levels of participation. The Gold level is geared for "casual buyers," or those that purchase only a few appliances per year, while the Platinum level is for those resellers that include the Barracuda products in their security offerings. Both levels receive a discount off the list price, and the Platinum-level resellers also receive any necessary training and marketing materials including a listing on Barracuda's Web site.