FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 21 February 2003

MailGuard protects 300th organisation

First Australian managed email protection solution filters over 150,000 emails daily

MailGuard, Australia's first and leading provider of outsourced email anti-virus, anti-spam and content filtering solutions, has secured its 300th customer with Bakers Delight selecting MailGuard to manage and filter all its users' incoming and outgoing email.

The buoyant company is forecasting sales will double in the next six months bolsted by a growing number of overseas organisations utilising the Australian company's services. MailGuard is currently filtering over 150,000 emails every day. This number is expected to grow to 200,000 by March 2003. The company has experienced a strong and growing demand for its fully managed solution over the last 12 months as companies increasingly become aware of the costs resulting from viruses and spam entering companies' networks, or confidential documents leaving.

Bakers Delight is Australasia's largest and oldest bakery franchise. Head office employs over 200 personnel to service the needs of its hundreds of franchisees. "The business case for adopting MailGuard's solution was just too strong to ignore," said Peter Carrodus, Bakers Delight IT Manager. "Today, we have over 200 users all comprehensively protected from viruses and junk mail 24 hours a day. Desktop anti-virus just isn't enough anymore - but with MailGuard automatically updated every 10 minutes, we have been virus and spam free since adopting the service."

Carrodus believes email security is a very specialised area that is costly to have inhouse. "MailGuard's service-based model works well for us, delivers comprehensive filtering solutions and, in addition, is actually saving Bakers Delight money in both resources and productivity time," he says.

Andrew Johnson, MailGuard Marketing Director, said, "Today, unwanted emails [viruses, worms, spam, pornography, etc], and email usage is a key concern within all organisations whether there are two or 2,000 users. It is essential to have the ability to filter certain types of email and flag these for the attention of management."

Industry verticals which have embraced the MailGuard solution include HR/recruitment, shipping (freight forwarders, custom brokers) and the commercial development/ construction segment. These three vertical markets incorporate 45 per cent of the company's client base.

Two years ago, the primary concern was on the anti-virus side of things. "Today, junk and spam mail, as well as managing the types of emails entering and leaving the organisation, are the driving forces behind companies' email management strategies," said Johnson. The company is driven by the knowledge that, in today's business environment, email is just as (and often more) important as an organisation's phone system.

To address these concerns, in October 2002, MailGuard launched SpamGuard® to provide significant enhancements to its previous MailGuard junk mail filter. The new solution allows for intelligent quarantine, deletion, send, delay or 'send a copy to' a specific email address. "MailGuard does not censor an organisation's email, we provide simple tools to effectively manage what comes in and out," says Johnson. "The customer reaction has been overwhelming."

Paul Bamford, Melbourne Zoo's IT Manager, was one of the early adopters of the MailGuard solution. The zoo's network of 270 users, spread across Healesville Sanctuary, Werribee and Melbourne Zoo sites, has benefited from the MailGuard service. "MailGuard just keeps ticking in the background, stopping viruses and spam. I haven't had to do anything and can now address the goals of the organisation and focus our efforts in this area. Today, we are also using MailGuard for content filtering and managing large attachments."

"Companies may update their anti-virus software, at the desktop level, regularly but a delay of days or even hours can prove disastrous," Johnson said, "MailGuard overcomes this by utilising three anti-virus filters, all automatically updating every 10 minutes, 24x7, without the need to buy another box, or install any software."

From $2.95 per user per month, Johnson states that his company provides the best available protection within Australia against sophisticated viruses and junk mail 24 hours per day.

"With network administrators bearing the brunt of email-related problems and with one in four spending more than an hour each day managing spam, an organisation such as MailGuard is proving to save thousands of dollars weekly for hundreds of Australian organisations by stopping the emails at the Internet before they arrive at the our clients networks door steps," concluded Johnson.

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Issued by Rivers of Communication
On behalf of MailGuard

Media enquiries
Craig McDonald, Director of Strategy, MailGuard, tel: +61 3 9694 4444
Dolores Diez, Rivers of Communication, tel: +61 3 9572 4552 / 0417 330 881
email: dolores@riversofcom.com