Astaro Partners to Benefit from New Free Firewall Strategy

Astaro Security Gateway Essential Firewall Edition Key to Generating New Business Opportunities.

December 15, 2009 (Wilmington, MA) – Astaro Corporation (http://www.astaro.com), a leading network security vendor, has begun offering the Essential Firewall Edition of its flagship Astaro Security Gateway all-in-one security solution for free. Astaro made this move to create new business opportunities for its partners worldwide.

As a result of wider economic pressures, IT in general today is shaped by one dictate: reducing costs. This is why more and more businesses, especially small and medium sized organisations, are currently using cheap solutions or even consumer products to protect their IT environments. The imperative to reduce costs also results in many postponed projects and more careful spending of budgets. The free Essential Firewall edition from Astaro aims to support both partners and end users with the necessary functionality to be secure today at no cost, as well as expanding with the customer as their needs grow.

“Companies must break new ground to be successful these days”, said Jan Hichert, CEO at Astaro. “Our free Essential Firewall edition not only helps small and medium businesses to secure their networks to a professional standard, it also opens up new business opportunities for our partners and us. By introducing Astaro’s products to people who beforehand have not experienced them, we aim to significantly increase our install base.”

The Essential Firewall edition is based on the Astaro Security Gateway and delivers the fundamental functionality required to protect customers and their networks. If more functionality is needed over time, the customer can upgrade to the full Astaro Security Gateway. Astaro expects this approach to generate totally new opportunities for its partners.

“In the first weeks after the launch, we registered more than 2000 downloads of our Essential Firewall edition”, said Hichert. “We expect this number to grow rapidly as the word of the first free enterprise firewall spreads. All business opportunities that develop out of this install base will go through our partners.”