FORT LEE, N.J., Dec. 8, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Recognizing the need for businesses to provide employees, customers and partners with secure access to applications and information, Whale Communications today announced an effort to enhance the integration of Whale's e-Gap SSL VPN offering with Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, OWA, SharePoint and Terminal Services. Working with Microsoft Corp., Whale will improve e-Gap integration with Microsoft Office, Microsoft ISA Server 2000 and key technologies from .Net partners.
"This relationship will help provide the security, usability and integration needed to meet business demands for large-scale mobile, remote and Extranet access for every authorized user," said Mike Chan, product manager at Microsoft. "We look forward to working with Whale Communications and are excited about the potential for added levels of security and functionality for our customers and partners."
Whale's e-Gap appliance offers a combination of security and application-level usability that assures the privacy and consistency of the user experience in any setting. It allows companies to support a variety of diverse user and IT resource communities, security policies, authentication methods and access tiers on a single device.
Working with Microsoft will help to ensure that business users can meet both their security and usability requirements to provide access to applications and information to any authorized user from any Web-enabled device, anywhere in the world.
"Companies want to extend the security and richness of experience of their LANs to remote, mobile and Extranet users," said Gamiel Gran, Whale Communications Vice President of Alliances and Business Development. "After enhancing e-Gap support for Exchange and Outlook, we quickly realized that customers wanted that integration extended to the complete range of Microsoft applications. This relationship and roadmap will accelerate the delivery of those benefits."
Whale believes in the power, flexibility, and usability of Microsoft applications and platforms, and has invested considerable resources in not only its e-Gap solutions running on Windows, but has specifically tailored e-Gap support to ensuring that Microsoft applications can be accessed as remotely and securely as possible.
Today, Whale offers seamless, out-of-the-box support for Exchange Server, Outlook and Outlook Web Access, along with web applications such as the SharePoint Portal Server, and Terminal Services for traditional client-server applications.
"The key goal with the Microsoft Office System is to provide users with better visibility into business information so they can gain deeper insights, make better decisions, and take more effective action to make their businesses more productive and successful," said Erik Ryan, SharePoint Product Manager, at Microsoft. "We're thrilled to see Whale Communications build upon this goal and provide a solution that will extend the customer value of SharePoint Portal Server 2003."
In addition to emphasizing easy support for external Microsoft applications, Whale built its technology on Microsoft Server solutions, making the e-Gap Appliance a seamless fit with typical network environments. Built on the Windows Server platform, e-Gap leverages ASP, XML, ActiveX and other Microsoft technologies to provide a highly customizable solution that is very easily integrated with any Microsoft environment, as well as simple to use for any end-user familiar with Microsoft applications.
About Whale Communications
Whale Communications, the leading enterprise-class SSL VPN vendor, is enabling companies to provide employees and partners secure access to corporate data and applications from any web browser. Its award-winning solutions have been securing enterprises worldwide since it was founded in 1998. Privately held, Whale is funded by prominent venture firms and industry leaders, including Goldman Sachs, Soros Private Equity Partners and the BRM Group, the founding investor of Check Point Software Technologies. The company is headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey and has international offices in Israel, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Whale Communications, e-Gap, Whale and the Whale logo are trademarks of Whale Communications Ltd. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders. For more information about Whale visit: www.whalecommunications.com.