WebSpy appliances itself overseas

Perth security ISV WebSpy has signed a deal with a Melbourne security appliance manufacturer to take that vendor's products overseas.

Jack Andrys, CEO of WebSpy, said the ISV and security appliance maker Exinda Networks had agreed to combine their complementary capabilities to ramp up their market push.

'They're starting to push their product out. That product is bandwidth management, so determines how much bandwidth is available for current protocol,' he said. 'And they've spent a lot of money doing that.'

WebSpy already had a well-developed customer network overseas, including offices in places such as the US but sought to consolidate that business as a platform for further growth, he said. He added that WebSpy in October came 35th in the Business Review Weekly Fast 100 list of Australia's fastest growing companies.

Andrys conceded that security appliances had certain disadvantages but argued they still had market potential.
Hardware-based all-in-one integrated appliances often ran customised, proprietary software and were thus often out of date by the time they appeared on the market. 'It takes more time [to build a hardware-based appliance] than to build the software to work with it,' Andrys said.

However, appliances in certain business situations could offer cost benefits. Smaller businesses with different offices using the same platforms could find a security appliance installation quicker and more cost-effective than trying to mix and match individual software packages to create overall security for their networks.

'Think about it. It is an essentially integrated solution most of the time,' Andrys said. 'When they install the appliance and get it working in one area, they know it will work in other areas that same way.'
Andrys points out that routers are appliances, yet are getting more configurable security features built in over time. Also, appliance costs were coming down, he said.

'In the old days, you used to route through a PC. Not everyone could afford a Cisco router so they used a network card and routed through a PC,' he said. 'For my ADSL [connection] at home, I have a $300 box that does all different things [and] which sets up security on it. It's a year old and it's wonderful.'

Exinda Networks gear was formerly distributed by defunct security software specialist Janteknology. Janteknology was closed down earlier this year due to a serious internal security breach, its then-MD Glenn Miller told CRN at the time.