SonicWALL leads global UTM market

SonicWALL was once again the leading global vendor in the UTM appliance category, which doubled its market share to 23.6% in the second quarter of 2005 compared to the same quarter one year ago. Anticipating this market growth, SonicWALL integrated unified threat management capabilities into its entire product line at the end of 2004. IDC defines UTM security appliance products as those which integrate multiple security features including network firewalling, network intrusion detection and prevention, and gateway anti-virus within one box.

"Without a constantly updated threat management solution, a firewall is subject to attack before you have even finished installing it," said Matthew Medeiros, president and chief executive officer at SonicWALL. "Internet threats don't discriminate between the scale of the network they attack, and we believe that everyone should have access to the best network protection. We have therefore made our UTM capabilities affordable, powerful and available to all our users, regardless of the size of their business."

The announcement comes days after SonicWall held its first partner conference in parallel to GITEX on September 27th 2005. Entitled 'Peak Performance', the event brought together partners from all across the region to learn about new SonicWALL technologies, services, channel programs, and strategic initiatives.

Speaking on the event, Antony Chapman, senior director, APAC/MEA at SonicWALL, said: "We believe that it is vital to meet our partners face to face in order to create refined channel practices and programmes - it helps to create deeper and more knowledgeable relationships. GITEX 2005 presented the perfect opportunity to touch base with many of our partners all in one place."

SonicWALL also leveraged GITEX to showcase its appliance-based products and value-added security services for SMB, enterprise, education, healthcare, government, retail and hospitality.

"The full attendance at the SonicWALL seminar demonstrated the excitement currently being generated by advanced IT protection services in both the partner and end user community. Last year, we focused on the technical education for our customers − this year, we were able to build on that groundwork by educating our partners to better support our customers," added Chapman.

SonicWALL's family of Internet security appliances provide the first line of defense against Internet security threats. They include an ICSA-certified packet inspection firewall, IPSec VPN for remote access, IP address management features and support for SonicWALL value-added security services.

Designed to increase security by reducing complexity, SonicWALL Internet security appliances eliminate the cost and complexity of installing and managing separate devices and software packages for comprehensive security. SonicWALL's award-winning Global Management System (GMS) software enhances ease of management by allowing IT administrators to manage the security policies for unlimited numbers of SonicWALL devices from a single location. Currently, over 50,000 SonicWALL firewalls are managed by GMS, with the largest single-organization deployment numbering over 3,000.

SonicWALL's Asia West representation in the UAE increases the company's presence in Asia Pacific to 8 offices: Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, China, India, Pakistan and the UAE.