From Spam Daily News
SonicWall to acquire MailFrontier
Posted on
February 08, 2006
Security vendor SonicWall on Wednesday said it plans to buy MailFrontier in a $31 million deal that will add e-mail protection to its threat and content management business.
The deal is expected to close in about 10 days, pending regulatory approval, said John DiLullo, vice president of sales at SonicWall, Sunnyvale, Calif.
Palo Alto, California-based MailFrontier is a privately-held company providing email security and compliance solutions to the mid-enterprise market. Its products protect organizations against inbound and outbound email threats such as spam, viruses and phishing, and provide policy enforcement and control to simplify achieving regulatory compliance and corporate governance.
In the short term, SonicWall aims to keep each vendor's products separate. Douglas Brockett, vice president and general manager at SonicWall, said secure messaging and firewall products are essentially separate devices in a network and will remain so for some time. So for now, SonicWall will work to sharpen the compatibility between its products and MailFrontier's offerings, which is expected to take about six months, he said.
MailFrontier has about 100 VAR partners and 1,700 customers, and about 80% of the company's total sales go through those partners, Brockett said. Between 30% and 40% of MailFrontier VARs are also SonicWall resellers, he said.
SonicWall has about 10,000 solution provider partners worldwide and has shipped more than 750,000 products to-date.
Anne Bonaparte, president and chief executive officer of MailFrontier, said, "Given the continued complexity and hybrid nature of threats attacking corporate networks, security is of critical importance. End users are increasingly concerned about protection of content on outbound email paths for regulatory compliance and corporate governance requirements. Our combined technology strengths and distribution breadth will enhance the comprehensive security solutions we are able to offer our customers."
"MailFrontier's solutions, providing power without complexity, are a natural fit with our offerings," said Matthew Medeiros, president and chief executive officer of SonicWALL, Inc. "Secure content management is a high growth segment offering excellent potential for SonicWALL and our partners worldwide. MailFrontier's IP portfolio provides a significant opportunity for future expansion of our capabilities in this area.
"Our channel partners and their customers are adamant that they need a powerful, simple solution that can be integrated into their broader secure network," added Medeiros.
SOURCE: SonicWALL, Inc.