With the VPN hardware market expected to hit nearly $3 billion in revenues by 2005, Internet security solutions provider SonicWALL, Inc. has been forging new alliances and developing new products to strengthen its portfolio of firewall/virtual private network (VPN) security appliances.

by Gretchen Hyman of siliconvalley.internet.com [March 29, 2002]

SonicWALL, Inc. went to market this week with its new VPN Client 8.0, a software-based solution for simplifying the creation of VPN tunnels with any of the company's pre-existing security appliances.

With IT security as its central focus, Client 8.0 gives remote users the ability to initiate VPNs for secure, private access to corporate networks from either a wireless infrastructure or the Internet.

For wireless users, Client 8.0 provides support for the 802.11b wireless protocol. For dial-up or broadband users, VPN tunnels can be created behind any device performing network address translation or running on Microsoft Windows XP.

The new VPN software runs on Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, and supports multiple VPN gateways for network connection reliability.

"While delivering exponential productivity gains to remote workers and users in wireless environments, the privacy of these connections remains one of the biggest IT concerns," said Tom Furlong, senior vice president of marketing and engineering for SonicWALL. "The VPN Client 8.0 delivers enhanced productivity, enabling reliable, secure access to corporate network resources from remote locations and from wireless devices."

Named 'market share leader' of the VPN hardware market six consecutive times by research and consulting firm Infonetics Research, SonicWALL started off the year with high marks, a fourth quarter report of $33.1 million profit, and a 56 percent increase in company revenue from last year.

The company also scored a series of industry alliances that should keep its products in the forefront for a long time to come. Most recently, SonicWALL penned a deal with security services provider Veritect to market and resell SonicWALL's entire line of firewall and VPN security products to its customer base of government agencies and global enterprises.

SonicWALL partnered with Websense Inc. in February to bundle Websense software with Sonic's family of ASIC-based firewall and VPN appliances. The company developed a Business Security service with Latin American telecommunications giant Embratel to provide Internet users in the small and medium business market with SonicWALL's security technology. And in January, SonicWALL struck a distribution deal with Micromatics Inc., a distributor of security products and training services for firewall/VPN and anti-virus products.

SonicWALL has also been tapped by BellSouth to offer its FastAccess Internet Service customers with SonicWALL's SOHO3 security solution, a firewall solution with anti-virus and content filtering capability.

Pricing and availability
SonicWALL's VPN Client 8.0 is available now to SonicWALL customers with a valid software license agreement and can be downloaded free of charge form the company's website.

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