Workshare offers Protect, a series of products designed to control information leaks. Protect:
- Scans email, instant messages (supported in the next version), Web sessions, files (e.g., on hard disks or removable storage), and file transfers to removable media.
- Takes customer-defined action when a policy is triggered; for example, block, alert, encrypt, create PDF, apply document rights, quarantine.
Protect comes as:
- Client software.
- An appliance that scans network traffic.
- Software that scans network traffic.
CALs start at $30/user/year, and reduce based on volume. Something like 80% of sales go through channels; the remainder are direct. Workshare sees Vontu and Reconnex as its main competitors, although a number of content control vendors would also appear to be candidates.
Several interesting things stand out:
- It works offline, using the client software.
- Users can get automatic feedback on their actions. There’s no need for manual interception by an operator. This supports user education, and reduces the IT burden.
- Workshare is leveraging an existing strength. The company also sells well-established document change tracking software. Some of this technology is used in Protect, so customers are a natural market.
- The company has developed a healthy set of partnerships to enhance its policy definition, including ones with EMC/Documentum, GigaTrust, IBM, PGP, PostX, RPost, Secure Computing, Secured eMail, Utimaco, and Voltage.