05/12/2008

Proofpoint Inc. announced Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition, a lower-cost version of its email security service to target SMBs.

ebizQ received the following:

“SMB’s today face the same email security challenges as Proofpoint’s large, multi-national enterprise customers, and they demand the same level of protection, combined with exceptional ease-of-use,” said Andrew Lochart, vice president of product marketing for Proofpoint. “Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition offers SMBs a cost-effective, ‘no compromise’ hosted email security solution that delivers superior effectiveness, zero administration overhead, better support and a broader feature set compared to ‘budget’ services and low-end, appliance-based email security solutions.”

Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition is hosted in a multi-tenant environment that uses the same world-class datacenters as Proofpoint’s dedicated offering, Proofpoint on Demand—Enterprise Edition. The Standard Edition also offers the same performance guarantees including 99%+ spam effectiveness, 100% virus protection, “five nines” availability and “no delay” email delivery. This ensures that SMBs will benefit from best-in-class, uninterrupted email security without having to invest in additional IT personnel or infrastructure.

Designed for true, “lights out” operation and zero administration overhead, Proofpoint handles all implementation, 24x7 monitoring and operational support, updates and upgrades for Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition customers. Unlike budget SaaS solutions, the Standard Edition includes 8x5 phone support for customer requests and advanced availability features such as email spooling. Proofpoint on Demand—Enterprise Edition has enjoyed rapid adoption and is protecting more than half a million global users in just the first six months of availability. Proofpoint projects even faster adoption of Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition given the size of the SMB market and the fact that SMBs have not been well-served by low-end email security solutions. For example:

Australia’s Royal Life Saving Society, NSW branch recently switched from an on-premises email security solution to Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition and found that it delivered far superior accuracy against spam.

“In the last week no one has received any spam,” said Caitlin Chellew, health promotion manager for Royal Life Saving NSW. “We are literally getting no spam.”

New England construction firm Opechee Construction Company recently switched from a mail server-based anti-spam solution to Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition with similar results.

“Proofpoint on Demand—Standard Edition has completely solved our spam problems. The difference is like night and day from our previous solution,” said Matt Twombly, IT manager for Opechee Construction Corporation. “The service has also eliminated the administration headaches we used to face, freeing our IT resources for other demands. And we have the peace of mind of knowing that Proofpoint’s service is guaranteed by the most stringent service level agreements.”