Company says ISPs and MSPs want it all from one vendor who doesn't compete with them.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [June 29, 2006]

In June, Fort Collins, Colo.-based Privacy Networks announced Privacy Vault, the latest addition to its Email Integrity Suite (EIS). Privacy Vault is designed to enable storage and rapid retrieval of e-mail. The company noted that compliance with laws such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, and GLBA (for the financial industry) have increased demand for storage management.

But the company offers more than storage management. The four components of EIS are the Management Layer (anti-virus, etc.), PrivacyHost (against threats like spam and phishing), PrivacyVault (storage), and PrivacyLock (encryption). The fourth component, encryption, is not yet complete. In addition, the company offers PrivacyMobile, to deliver content safely to devices like PDAs and mobile phones.

Steven Berens, Privacy Networks' CEO, said that there's no demand—yet—for encryption. "We're holding off because the market is not yet ready for this product," he said, "but we are committed to making encryption easier by the end of this year or early next."

The market's so bright, I'm buried in spam
The remaining three pieces of EIS play in markets with products from large companies that ISPs are familiar with. In his presentation, Berens pointed to Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, and AVG, among others, as Management Layer products; Postini, Brightmail, MXLogic, and FrontBridge (recently acquired by Microsoft) as playing in the PrivacyPost area; and Fortiva, iLumin, and others as playing in the PrivacyVault area.

So it's a big market, but Privacy Networks has numerous competitors.

In the past, we thought that companies would remain in their verticals and consolidate, but that did not happen. Instead, market leaders like Symantec and Microsoft have bought anti-spam services, and we expect more to acquire companies with products in markets they're not competing in. So Privacy Networks, with its all in one solution, could be part of a trend.

A clear strength of EIS, for ISPs, will be the company's intuitive administration GUI, offering:

• Single sign on (using LDAP)
• Web interface
• Reporting
• Search
• Permission management by company and division within a company

ISPs and MSPs considering implementing a solution like EIS should look at this product if only for the GUI, which is very well designed.

The package is chosen by the customer
Berens said that a certain number of customers will never adopt a managed service for any application, because they want to do it themselves. In recognition of this, Privacy Networks allows MSPs to deliver the product in an appliance, as software on a box of the ISP's choosing, or as a hosted service.

"Most people don't mind if you hold their spam for you," he told us. "But they are hesitant to let you hold all their e-mail."

Pricing and availability
EIS is available now.

For service providers, pricing is generally per customer mailbox. Service provider pricing was not disclosed.

—End