Web 2.0

Facetime Adds Sophos AV Protection to Unified Security Gateway

Facetime is a respected name in unified communications security. Its Unified Security Gateway, or USG 3.0, appliance allows enterprise administrators to control the web sites and applications that can be accessed by users, as well as monitoring and filtering content for Web 2.0 communications such as webmail, blogs, and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Aside from the goal of protecting intellectual property and sensitive information, the USG 3.0 appliance also provides the tools necessary to maintain legal and regulatory compliance related to network security and disclosing information.

Another threat that enterprise administrators have to contend with is malware and malicious attacks. Mike Rogers, vice president of Global Alliances and OEM for Sophos stressed the issue. “For the first six months of this year, SophosLabs detected 23,500 new infected Web pages–that’s one every 3.6 seconds. This statistic underscores the necessity of ensuring safe Web browsing, which includes virus and other malware protection.”

That is why Facetime is adding Sophos antivirus scanning and malware protection technologies to incorporate into the USG 3.0 appliance.

FaceTime Strengthens UC / Web 2.0 Security with Sunbelt Partnership

FaceTime is building more comprehensive security into its Unified Security Gateway thanks to a partnership with Sunbelt Software.

According to the press release, “Sunbelt’s anti-malware technology, designed specifically for the gateway, and its Threat Track(TM) data feeds have been licensed by FaceTime for integration with its Unified Security Gateway product. As part of the integration, FaceTime will deploy Sunbelt’s VIPRE(R) technology into its appliance to augment the protection provided by FaceTime’s Security Labs and the FaceTime WebFilter.”

What that translates to for you is a gateway appliance that performs both Web filtering and malware scanning at the perimeter to keep bad stuff out and good stuff in. The combination of FaceTime’s Security Labs efforts to identify Web 2.0 threats and SunbeltLabs malware research provide a formidable defense against emerging threats.

If you are using unified communications and/or Web 2.0 technologies in your network, the FaceTime Unified Security Gateway is probably worth investigating as a solution for securing and protecting your network.

Why Twitter Works

The consumer masses may be under the impression that social networking is comprised only of MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. What they are not aware of is that there are many other tools and sites that have come and gone. Many may even still exist, but they haven’t gained the popularity or reached that critical mass necessary to catch the attention of mainstream consumers.

Why is that? What does one social networking site do different than another that causes one to capture the imagination and explode onto the Web, while others fade into obscurity? In this post, The Zen of Twitter, that question is examined as it relates to Twitter. One thing I like is the list of specific things that Twitter has done which seem to be working for them.

Follow me on Twitter

Unified Communications & Social Networking

Many of the components included in unified communications started off or at least became mainstream in the consumer market. Instant messaging, web-based email, wikis, etc.. These technologies seem to catch fire as a grassroots movement from end-users jumping on the latest cutting edge technologies often before they even understand what the point of them is. Eventually, they become more mainstream and enterprises find ways to leverage or exploit them as well and they become integrated into the corporate network.

Unified communications is an established market, but also a young and evolving market at the same time. Web 2.0 and social networking continue to evolve almost exponentially as well. Where the two meet they can either assimilate and become one, or battle to the death for dominance. Read this article to learn more about a panel discussion at Interop 2009 focused on the future of unified communications and social networking convergence.

Social Networking on Company Time

Employees are only human. They take breaks. They get distracted. As companies demand more from fewer employees and blur the line between ‘work’ time and ‘personal’ time, it is to be expected that personal or non-business use of computer and network resources will occur. But, how much is too much?

A recent study by Facetime found that actual usage is about 10 times higher than what managers estimated employees were doing. Employees are using MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and many other social networking and Web 2.0 resources. This activity may exceed a reasonable amount of ‘personal’ time for some employees and it also has security implications for the enterprise. Check out this ITWeb article for a more detailed breakdown of what Facetime found in the study.

Nortel Interactive Communications Platform

One of the next big frontiers for Unified Communications is integrating UC functionality into call centers or customer support departments. Granted, most organizations are still struggling to manage the original frontier of how to deploy UC in the first place and realize the values and benefits it delivers. But, the ability to leverage those same benefits and increased efficiency can really translate to ROI when you are talking about how hundreds or thousands of calls are routed for customer support centers. Nortel has introduced their Interactive Communications Platform, or ICP, which provides Web 2.0 style widgets that companies can incorporate into their web sites which will provide customers with the ability to initiate instant messaging sessions with company representatives, or use a click to call function which will automatically initiate a call back from the customer support center to the customer. Evangelyze Communications has also developed a click to chat utility that links with the Office Communicator instant messaging functionality to allow customers to chat in real-time with Evangelyze Communications representatives and get answers to their questions.

Defining Unified Communications

What is UC? A recent exchange between Information Week’s Eric Krapf and one of his readers illustrates some of the confusion that exists in the general population. In a nutshell, Eric had stated in a prior article that adoption of unified communications is progressing slowly. A reader responded to say that everything is “unified communications”- YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and that all of these services and technologies represent the convergence of communications concepts to provide unified communications. I agree with Eric’s reply though. Those things are an example of technology convergence on another level and they are integral to Web 2.0, but they are not ‘unified communications’ in the sense we generally refer to. As Krapf points out, when the press refers to ‘unified communications’ what they really mean is enterprise unified communications- or bringing communications technologies together in a way that makes users more productive and business more efficient.