WatchGuard Technologies - UTM Champion and Value Award Winner

SEATTLE, Aug. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader of business security solutions, today announced that Info-Tech Research Group, the global leader in providing tactical, practical Information Technology research and analysis, positioned WatchGuard as a UTM Vendor Landscape Champion and winner of their Value Award.

In its analysis, Info-Tech Research Group evaluated ten competitors in the networking perimeter Unified Threat Management (UTM) market, including: Cisco, CheckPoint, Fortinet, Juniper, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks, and others.  Based on their analysis of product features, affordability, usability, architecture, and vendor viability, strategy, reach and channel, WatchGuard was deemed to be a Champion due to its "balance of strong product and vendor capabilities at a market-leading price point, [WatchGuard] leads with a UTM solution that can deliver benefits to any organization."

"It is an honor to be recognized as both a UTM Vendor Champion and Value Award winner by Info-Tech Research Group," said Eric Aarrestad, VP Marketing for WatchGuard Technologies.  "WatchGuard's UTM solutions were compared side-by-side with some of the industry's most well known networking and security vendors, and without question, the analysis concluded that no other UTM vendor ranked higher than WatchGuard."

Info-Tech Research Group set a high standard for its UTM Vendor Landscape analysis.  At a minimum to qualify UTM Vendors had to pass a "table stake" threshold of firewall, VPN, anti-malware and intrusion prevention requirements.  Additional advanced feature analysis included: identity-based control, data leakage protection (DLP), network access control, URL filtering, application control, Wi-Fi network control, WAN routing and optimization and encrypted data control.

WatchGuard – UTM Champion

In conclusion of the Info-Tech Research Group analysis, WatchGuard was deemed to be the leading Champion based on the company's award-winning, XTM 5 Series UTM security appliance.  WatchGuard was called out an "exemplary" performer for "balance between cost and capability," and in particular, Info-Tech Research Group stated that WatchGuard is "strong, the products able, and the pricing can't be beat."  Furthermore, Info-Tech Research Group recommends, "Small/Medium businesses looking for solid feature functionality at an absolute rock-bottom price will find a lot to like in WatchGuard and their XTM line of appliances."

WatchGuard – UTM Value Award Winner

A substantive "Value Score," which indexes each vendor's product offering and business strength relative to their price point, is a determinative result based on the analysis generated by Info-Tech Research Group.  On a relative basis, WatchGuard maintained the highest Info-Tech Value Score of the vendor group.  Vendors were indexed against WatchGuard's performance to provide complete, relative view of their product offerings.  Based on this, the average UTM vendor score was 45.7, whereas WatchGuard scored a perfect 100.

WatchGuard XTM Solutions

WatchGuard is a pioneer in the firewall appliance market and renowned for its award-winning extensible threat management (XTM) security appliances.  The XTM family of network security appliances is a new class of performance-driven solutions that marry high-throughput with advanced networking features to handle high-volume traffic securely and affordably. This includes integration a suite of flexible management tools that allows IT administrators to manage security through an intuitive centralized console, command line interface, and web UI. There are 14 XTM models to choose from, for small to mid-size businesses that span 50 users or fewer and up to 5,000.  

The Info-Tech Research Group Vendor Landscape: Unified Threat Management, the perimeter firewall grows up and becomes a Swiss Army Knife of protection capabilities is available for free to download at www.watchguard.com.  Additional XTM product information is available at www.watchguard.com/products.

About Info-Tech Research Group

With a paid membership of over 8,000 organizations worldwide, Info-Tech Research Group (www.infotech.com) is the global leader in providing tactical, practical Information Technology research and analysis.  Info-Tech Research Group has a thirteen-year history of delivering quality research and is one of North America's fastest growing full-service IT analyst firms.

About WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.

Since 1996, WatchGuard® Technologies, Inc. has been the advanced technology leader of business security solutions, providing mission-critical protection to hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide.  The WatchGuard family of wired and wireless unified threat management appliances, messaging, content security and SSL VPN remote access solutions provide extensible network, application and data protection, as well as unparalleled network visibility, management and control.  WatchGuard products are backed by WatchGuard LiveSecurity® Service, an innovative support, maintenance, and education program.  WatchGuard is headquartered in Seattle and has offices serving North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. To learn more, visit http://www.watchguard.com/.

WatchGuard is a registered trademark of WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.  All other marks are property of their respective owners.

SOURCE WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.