Manage & Secure Instant Messaging
Akonix L7 Enterprise 4.3 Helps Companies With IM Compliance, Access
Instant messaging has taken off as a popular method for people to use to “talk” in real time via the computer. From its origins as Internet Relay Chat and then the advent of ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger, Instant Messaging, or IM, has taken the world by storm. It didn’t take long for users to bring their new communications tool into the workplace. Initially, it was purely for nonproductive purposes, used primarily to chat with friends and family when users were supposed to be working. But eventually it caught on as a fast and efficient means of communicating with co-workers, customers, vendors, and others. Don Montgomery, vice president of marketing for Akonix Systems, says, “Instant messaging is one of the fastest growing communication tools of all time, outpacing even email in its explosive growth period. Just as email has become a business-critical application, so too is Instant Messaging. As such, it requires the same type of security, compliance, and manageability expected from any enterprise application or business-critical tool.” Akonix Systems’ Akonix L7 Enterprise 4.3 can help companies leverage the convenience and efficiency of Instant Messaging as a communications tool, protect the internal network from attacks through Instant Messaging, and provide a central means of capturing and storing instant message communications. As Instant Messaging has evolved into a sanctioned corporate tool, more vendors have begun to create tools to help administrators manage and protect Instant Messaging. Akonix faces competition from other devices such as CipherTrust’s IronIM appliance (www.ciphertrust.com) or Barracuda Networks’ IM firewall (www.barracudanetworks.com). Through the use of a remote security agent, Akonix L7 Enterprise is the only Instant Messaging security product that also protects devices when they are off the network. It is also currently the only Instant Messaging product that integrates with Microsoft Operations Manager. Montgomery also says, “L7 Enterprise is easy to manage through the use of policies, which can be fine-tuned to allow/ disallow features based on several parameters and requirements. This gives IT departments the control and visibility they need to effectively allow the most productive use of Instant Messaging while at the same time minimize risk.”
Reproduced from an article published by Processor
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http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/P2806/43p06...
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