21st September 2005 - SSL VPN product company Aventail recently announced its Secure Mobile Access Solution for PDAs and Smart Phones. Aventail Mobile is the market’s most complete SSL VPN for mobile devices, providing easy access to critical applications from virtually any mobile device with complete security and granular access control. Aventail Mobile supports all major operating systems, including Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, DoCoMo, and Symbian.

Unlike other mobile access solutions, Aventail is the only one to provide a single gateway and a common management and user experience for all devices, whether a home PC, laptop, kiosk or mobile device. For administrators, Aventail Mobile is integrated into Aventail’s centralised policy model, making it easy to set-up and control mobile device access, saving time and money. Users access applications on their mobile device via the same URL and authentication method they use for access from other systems.

Aventail Mobile also optimises the application content on each mobile device, so a user automatically gets access only to those applications that are appropriate for his or her device, rather than being shown links to applications that aren’t available. For example, a user on a Smart Phone would receive a link to Outlook Mobile Access and not to Outlook Web Access, which they would receive if at a kiosk or home PC. This mobile intelligence increases productivity by making it easy for the user to quickly access the information needed and eliminates the pain of clicking on a link that is inappropriate for a mobile device. No other SSL or IPSec VPN-based mobile solution on the market today is able to do this.

Mobile devices are becoming increasing prevalent among today’s workforce, with an estimated 15 million PDAs and 30 million Smart Phones hitting the market in 2005. Email is the killer application with Smart Phones, while companies are increasingly using managed PDAs for vertical specific applications such as CRM, supply chain, salesforce and field productivity applications.

The Aventail solution includes two access options. WorkPlace Mobile is a customised Web portal, allowing easy, clientless access to Web-based applications from any mobile device. Connect Mobile is a light-weight, Web-deployed agent that provides Windows Mobile PDA users with broad access to both Web and client/server applications.

“As mobile devices populate and play a larger role in enterprise networks, it is imperative that SSL VPNs embrace this capability,” said Evan Kaplan, CEO and president, Aventail. “We believe that individual mobile gateways will go away and these features and capabilities will be built into SSL VPN platforms, which are quickly becoming the application gateway for all devices, resources, and users.”

To ensure security and control, Aventail Mobile is integrated into Aventail’s Unified Policy and End Point Control functions. Mobile devices are only allowed access based on user identity and security of the device. Aventail technology interrogates the end point and classifies the device into a Policy Zone, allowing access only to authorized and relevant applications. Importantly, authorized users are only given access directly to named resources with no direct network connection, unlike IPSec and other solutions that give open network access to devices.

“Remote access is becoming increasingly complex, with internal and external users wanting access from multiple devices, and administrators and users have to often use multiple remote access solutions,” commented Peter Rysavy, principal, Rysavy Research, a wireless technology consulting firm that works with many of the leading wireless industry companies. “This new Aventail solution is exactly what companies need, because it provides administrators and users with a remote access solution that ensures security with mobile devices while providing one gateway and a common experience for all devices accessing the network.”

Pricing and Availability

The Aventail Secure Mobile Access Solution will be available in Q4 2005. WorkPlace Mobile will be included in the overall Aventail Smart SSL VPN platform. Connect Mobile is an add-on feature priced from $995.00.

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