Pragati Simlote

NEW DELHI: While the benefits of anytime, anywhere information access with the advent of Internet are obvious, there are also significant threats and risks for any organization in the form of unauthorized access, leaking of sensitive information, etc.

The US-based Blue Coat provides appliance-based solutions that empower organization with centralized control over all inbound and outbound web applications and communication across the extended enterprise.

Blue Coat appliances provide intelligent points of control to secure Web communications and accelerate delivery of business applications (with MACH5 acceleration technology).

“Since our inception, we have been delivering security devices to help enterprises, government and universities to make sure that their users are not doing something that they shouldn't or unknowingly bringing in wrong data like viruses or spyware,” said Blue Coat Systems international marketing and channels VP Nigel Hawthorn.

The company's customer base largely comprises large organizations with many offices. Mobile operators in some countries are also using Blue Coat's products to stop children in accessing adult content on mobiles.

“Every customers policy is different in terms of security. Some are concerned about virus, some about spyware, while other may be concerned about time wasting, bandwidth or leaking of confidential information. Our products are so designed as to follow the different policies of different companies,” said Hawthorn.

Markets in Asia and Europe are growing faster than the worldwide growth for the company. Virtual Netcomm Pvt. Ltd has been the company's distributor in India since 2000.

Virtual Netcomm director and group CEO Rajendra Shah said, “Call centers and BPOs are the major customers for the company in India and Blue Coat has experienced around 200-300 percent growth in the country in recent times. Blue Coat solutions can scale up from 10-20 users to 20,000 users and the price range is from Rs one lakh for the smallest system to Rs 75 – Rs one crore for a high end system.”

Virtual Netcomm currently has around eight channel partners selling Blue Coat product and is planning to appoint eight more partners in the next three months for selling these products.

“Some of the Indian ISPs are also our customers. One Mumbai based ISP has recently bought the Blue Coat solution for content filtering in order to provide internet services only for the children. We have created a platform, the companies have now understood the technology and in the next two years we expect India to become a major market for the company,” Shah added.

The company currently has 115 customers in India.