Untangle Brings the Open Source Movement to Small Business Network Security

June 26, 2007; 06:50 AM
Untangle, the pioneer in open source network gateway platforms, today launched the Untangle Gateway Platform – the world’s first commercial-grade open source solution for blocking spam, spyware, viruses, adware and unwanted content on the network.

Untangle now provides SMB customers and channel partners a free and better alternative to the costly, inflexible proprietary appliances from SonicWall, Barracuda and WatchGuard.

IDC calculates that vendor sales for “threat management devices” total over $3B annual today and are growing at 16% per year. The post-millennium market has been dominated by the Appliance Vendors, with open source projects relegated to point solution status. Competing from this position has been difficult in today’s consolidating IT market.

Today, Untangle picks up the sword of the open source movement by fielding a comprehensive, integrated and commercial-grade solution that distinguishes it against the Appliance Vendors in five key ways:

COST

• Free versus Expensive

HARDWARE

• Off-the-shelf versus Proprietary single-use

SPEED

• Immediate free download versus Call-and-wait-for-UPS

FLEXIBILITY

• Have it your way versus Have it our way

FUTURE PROOFING

• Open platform versus Closed box

“The Appliance Vendors have won market share by playing on fears of enterprise buyers that software solutions are difficult to install and manage,” said Bob Walters, CEO of Untangle. “Untangle completely cuts through that FUD with our downloadable “virtual appliance,” and further disrupts the status quo by using open source community leverage to both improve our products and to offer them at price points that would have been silly five years ago.”

Built around more than 30 best-of-breed, open source projects – including SpamAssasin, ClamAV, and Snort – the Untangle Gateway Platform provides the convenience, features and stability of the Appliance Vendors at a fraction of the cost and hassle. The complete system can be downloaded, installed, and configured in less than one hour.

“As an architectural firm, we need to spend our time with customers and projects – not on setting up and feeding anti-virus, web content and spam blocker applications,” said Jaron Daly, an architect at BGO Architects in Dallas, Texas. “With Untangle, I have peace of mind that the management of the network is done for me."

The Untangle Gateway Platform is available as a free download on SourceForge under the GPL v2 license. A four minute demo highlighting Untangle’s management capabilities can be seen at -- http://www.untangle.com/video_overview/. Live support and premium extensions from Untangle are also available starting at $25 per month.

“Open source economic leverage takes us to a place where the incumbents simply can’t play. All the features, support and stability of their boxes at a small fraction of the cost – ‘fight’s on’ and I wouldn’t want to be holding their stock,” said Walters.

About Untangle

Untangle was founded with the vision of untangling the complexities of technology, initially targeting network security and control for SMBs. The company follows Open Source development practices to create better code and make it widely available. The Untangle Gateway Platform, the world’s first commercial-grade open source solution for blocking spam, spyware, viruses, adware and unwanted content on the network, provides a free and better alternative to costly, inflexible proprietary appliances. Untangle’s applications are currently being used in hundreds of businesses in a variety of industries, including financial services, real estate, education, bio-science, and professional services. Untangle is located in San Mateo, California. For more information, visit www.untangle.com or call (866) 233-2296.