Quest expands Unified Communications offering to meet latest security challenge

MAIDENHEAD, UK – Oct. 8, 2008 – A new research study commissioned by enterprise systems management vendor Quest Software has highlighted the pressure on enterprise IT managers to accommodate the increasing ubiquity of ‘consumer’ technology such as MP3 players, VoIP and Instant Messaging (IM) in the workplace. 

Of those 200 UK-based enterprise IT managers targeted by Quest’s latest study, 70 per cent agreed that this increasing prevalence of consumer technology is creating complex business challenges for their organisations.

Perhaps surprisingly given these growing concerns, however, Quest’s survey also indicates that around half of those enterprise organisations either persist in allowing employees to store company data on personal devices such as smartphones and memory sticks, or at least lack formal policies intended to deter this practice. 

“Think about how daily working life is changing.  Public and corporate IM applications are on nearly every desktop; VoIP is evolving from consumer offerings such as Skype into enterprise-grade variants; audio/video conferencing technologies continue to mature; and increasing numbers of employees are using their personal mobile devices, MP3 players and USB keys to store company data,” explains Joe Baguley, CTO Europe, Quest Software.  “Given these trends, it’s hardly surprising that enterprise IT teams are feeling increasing pressure to manage the security threats posed by these so-called ‘consumer’ technologies entering the workplace,” he adds. 

Quest’s expanding portfolio of Unified Communications (UC) solutions provides policy management, security and data leak protection for real-time communication technologies such as Instant Messaging (IM), BlackBerry, VoIP and video conferencing.  Through this focus, Quest continues to strengthen its management offering for these technologies; enable the best-of-breed Quest Archive Manager solution to automatically archive public IM, corporate IM and BlackBerry communications; and extend its reach into those customers that have not chosen to adopt a Microsoft-centric communications platform.

“Aggressively growing Quest’s UC portfolio is a key strategic priority for the company right now and looking at these research findings, it’s easy to see why,” comments Joe Baguley.   “Our solutions help IT organisations to better create and enforce security policies based on business needs; protect against inbound threats and outbound data loss; and retain the records of policy enforcement for compliance purposes.  In an era of ever –increasing consumerisation of corporate technology, this comprehensive offering reinforces Quest’s status as the ESM vendor that really understands IT managers’ headaches and provides the right tools to address these pain points,” he concludes.