SonicWALL sees remote working queries soar

Sydney – 27 October 2009 – SonicWALL Australia has seen interest in its remote access security soar after what it calls a “perfect storm” of market conditions. SonicWALL has seen queries about its remote access security solutions triple in recent months as businesses respond to the current economic climate and look to reduce costs, in addition to dealing with the increasing threat of natural disasters, pandemics, terrorism, fires, power outages and hard drive crashes.

Increased interest in SonicWALL’s SSL VPN solutions is reflected in the company’s sales. SonicWALL continued to excel in the Australian SSL VPN market in Q2’09, as the company captured 25.5% of the market share to become the largest supplier of SSL VPN technology in Australia, according to Frost & Sullivan[1].

Dean Redman, SonicWALL’s Country Manager in Australia and New Zealand, said the company had witnessed increased demand for its SSL VPN solutions in Australia, which he believes is a reflection of companies tightening their belts and becoming increasingly aware of the potential threats to their business, and the benefits that working remotely can provide.

“It is not difficult to see that the current economic conditions are forcing companies to look beyond the usual modes of cost-saving and focus on the costly overhead of deploying and maintaining per-seat clients,” commented Redman.

Redman said the increased interest could also be a reaction to other global uncertainties such as the threat of terrorism and pandemics, and the recognition of the need to have secure remote access to resources should one of these issues arise.

The Victorian Workcover Authority (VWA) has recently upgraded its existing SonicWALL remote access solution to ensure its employees can securely access corporate systems and services over the internet while also being able to provide a scalable remote access infrastructure in the event of a disaster or pandemic situation.  

Brad Etchell, the Infrastructure Services Manager at the Victorian Workcover Authority, said the SonicWALL SSL VPN solution has not only provided them peace of mind that business could continue should a disaster occur, but has also significantly increased productivity by enabling VWA staff to spend more time in the field because they can securely access corporate applications and services. 

“The SonicWALL SSL VPN solution allows staff to focus on their day-to-day activities from any location, anytime, thereby increasing responsiveness and productivity,” said Etchell. “Having the SonicWALL solution in place also provides us with confidence that, if a disaster of some nature was to occur, business continuity wouldn’t be affected; staff could work remotely and business would be able to continue as normal.”

In addition to the threat of natural and unnatural disasters, there is also the constant threat of new security vulnerabilities such as the SSL Certificate Null Byte Poisoning vulnerability that was discovered by SonicWALL in early August.

“It is important for Australian companies to acknowledge that the security landscape is changing and to re-think their security approach – particularly with the increase in cloud computing,” Redman said.

The 2009 Gartner “Magic Quadrant for SMB Multifunction Firewalls” report also noted SonicWALL’s strong market position stating the company is a “leader” within the firewall family of network security appliances.

Key SSL VPN SonicWALL solutions for SMBs include SSL-VPN 4000, SSL-VPN 2000 and SSL-VPN 200 appliances which provide easy and affordable secure remote access for small to mid-sized businesses. The SonicWALL Aventail Secure Remote Access (SRA) solution is a key enterprise option and now includes: SRA EX7000, EX6000 and EX-750 SSL VPN.

For more information visit www.sonicwall.com/au

About SonicWALL, Inc.

SonicWALL is committed to improving the performance and productivity of businesses of all sizes by engineering the cost and complexity out of running a high performance secure network. Over one million SonicWALL security appliances have been shipped through its global network of ten thousand channel partners to keep tens of millions of worldwide business computer users safe and in control of their data. SonicWALL’s award-winning solutions include network security, secure remote access, content security, backup and recovery, and policy and management technology. For more information, visit the company web site at www.sonicwall.com/au.

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