One year after anti-spam acquisition, global security software
provider reports record growth, global expansion and product
integration.
Lynnfield, MA - With virus attacks becoming more sophisticated
and spam volumes continually on the rise, Sophos, a world leader in
protecting organizations against spam and viruses, continues to
build strong momentum in North America with record growth, product
leadership and expansion.
For Fiscal year 2003-2004, Sophos's bookings grew 42 percent
worldwide and 82 percent in North America over the previous year,
demonstrating the company's continued ability to capture market
share and secure its overall market position. The acquisition of
ActiveState in September 2003 gave Sophos a stronger competitive
edge in the North American market as the first company to provide a
single source anti-virus, anti-spam and email policy product for
the email gateway. This has resulted in rapid customer adoption and
46 percent contribution to overall company growth, up from 24
percent last year.
"As demand for broad email hygiene protection grows at a rapid
pace, customers are looking for single platforms, which combine
virus and spam protection along with content filtering and denial
of service attack prevention," said Matt Cain, senior vice
president of Meta Group. "Vendors that can aggregate multiple
hygiene services into a one solution offer customers economies of
scale in procurement, management and operational overhead."
Sophos provides its technologies exclusively to businesses in
over 150 countries, and this year it continued to deepen its
expansive list of customers. The worldwide user base for Sophos's
anti-spam product, PureMessage,
increased by 23 percent over the past six months. The number of
customers purchasing Sophos's consolidated anti-virus and anti-spam
products increased 300 percent in the past 12 months. Sophos also
expanded distribution of its products through OEM partnerships with
Blue Coat, Finjan, OpenService and Critical Path among others.
"In this market, it is imperative to have a security solution in
place that can quickly respond to the growing number of risks to
our business," said Neil Buckley, information security manager,
Partners HealthCare System. "Technology providers that understand
the nuances of both spam and virus threats enable a stronger and
faster response, decreasing our down time and loss of productivity.
This kind of solution is critical to our overall security
strategy."
Organizations continued to face threats and joint attacks from
virus writers and spammers in 2004. In September 2003, an analyst
firm estimated that spam affected 100 percent of enterprises and
that up to 50 percent of email was considered spam. In April 2004,
the same firm reported that, according to its clients, up to 80
percent of incoming emails are spam*. Despite legislation, there is
more spam than ever before and no evidence to support that such
laws have reduced the spam problem. On the virus side, in the first
six months of 2004, Sophos detected 4,677 new viruses, an increase
of 21 percent compared with the same period last year.
To date, Sophos protects over 25 million users across all
industries and around the world. This protection includes defending
against over 93,875 known viruses, up 11 percent from last year.
Sophos has also seen a 100 percent increase in spam volume over
last year. Sophos's anti-spam software protects over 8.6 million
corporate inboxes, filtering over 134 million messages daily.
Sophos solutions are uniquely positioned to protect against what
Sophos and the industry view as converging threats, by providing a
coordinated response to attacks through email filtering, virus
scanning techniques and policy management.
"In the year since the acquisition, we've delivered on the
market need to provide proactive protection through integrated
messaging security and desktop products," said Steve Munford,
president of Sophos Inc., who was appointed to lead the North
American effort in January 2004. In the wake of a rapid
proliferation of new threats, Munford cites the need for ongoing
diligence and proactive defense.
"Threats and compliance issues are evolving and are becoming
more global," continued Munford. "Virus writers are moving from a
"digital spray paint" motivation to a financial motivation. There's
an enormous need for the vendor community to adapt to new threats
through proactive protection. With global support and virus and
spam security labs worldwide, Sophos continues to lead in
delivering new technologies to protect businesses at all points of
the network."
Since the acquisition, Sophos has increased its employee base by
80 percent to nearly 900 today. Thirty percent of that growth has
been in North America. Sophos opened its new $55 million global
headquarters in October 2003 and continues on its 15-year track
record of reporting consecutive years of steady growth and
profit.
*Gartner, Enterprise Spam Filtering: DPRO-90634,
April 8, 2004; Stop Spam From Killing Workforce Productivity,
LE-21-0394, September 22, 2003
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.