Accellion blog has moved!

You should be automatically redirected in 6 seconds. If not, visit
http://www.accellion.com/blog/
and update your bookmarks.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Hey, Get Your Own Accellion Secure File Transfer Appliance Box!

Summary: Accellion customers often start with just one of our appliances and add more boxes as workers from other departments ask for access and are told to "get your own box".

-----

Have you seen the commercials for the Cheez-It snack? A person with a box of the crackers tells others to “get your own box” when they ask for a handout because the crackers are just too good to share.

Well, I’ve found that some customers view the Accellion Courier secure file transfer appliance in the same way – it’s just too good to share. Departments who are early adopters of the appliance tell their colleagues: Get your own box!

We often find that one business group with an on-going need for secure file transfer as part of the routine business process will be the first ones to bring an Accellion appliance box into the company. It doesn’t take long before the buzz spreads that this department has this convenient new tool for sending and receiving large files that requires no IT intervention. Others ask to use it. Sharing is fine to a point, and then the group just has to tell the moochers to get their own box.

Similarly, we have also seen cases where a particular business unit within the large enterprise is the designated center of excellence for IT solutions where there are in-depth resources and knowledge to deploy, evaluate, and recommend solutions for corporate level adoption. This is a win-win process as the users get hands-on exposure to the Accellion solution without the risk of corporate wide deployment and Accellion gets up-sell opportunities.

"Get your own box" and center of excellence are how it happened with a number of large and geographically distributed enterprises from health-care (multiple hospitals), medical devices (distributed R&D around the world), to manufacturing (global design and manufacturing locations).

Equally important is that starting small and adding more appliances later is a simple process. The Accellion Courier platform is architected to accommodate an individual group via a single box to an entire large enterprise with multiple locations and very high volumes of file transfer with distributed appliance clusters. In fact, you can grow from one type of configuration to the other without end users noticing the change. So, if your department is the early adopter of the appliance or the center of excellence for new solutions, Accellion makes it easy for both the end users and IT administrators.

Of course, we have yet to see a customer willing to give up his box once it’s in place. More than anything, they love the new found capabilities and tell others: Get your own (Accellion) box!

ACA Guy

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Latest Release of Accellion Secure File Transfer Solution Could Help More Than 75% of the Companies Surveyed on Secure File Transfer

Summary: How are more than 75% of companies sending files? Survey results reveal all. How does Accellion's latest secure file transfer appliance release provide a complete loop that is secure and easy to use, and which documents security compliance automatically? Look under the hood and find out.

-----

Recently Accellion commissioned a study to find out the various file transfer methods that companies of different sizes tend to use. Specifically, we wanted to learn more about companies’ concerns about security and compliance when sending and receiving files within the firewall as well as with external organizations.

We found that more than 75% of organizations surveyed use direct electronic methods, such as email, FTP and hosted file transfer, to transfer files/data among users and between organizations. Additionally, and not surprisingly, many of these same organizations (nearly 70%) also use less direct methods, such as burning CDs or copying files to USB "thumb drives" to send data to recipients outside the organization.

Regardless of the file transfer method(s) in use, the survey revealed that a majority of businesses are concerned that they aren’t doing enough to secure their private data when it is “in motion” and to meet the compliance requirements of government regulations.

Prior to release 5.5 of our appliance product, Accellion's secure file transfer appliance had many features that aided a company’s security and compliance measures for file transfer. This latest release addes to the capabilities for tracking information for compliance purposes.

For instance, a new feature provides a record of what files have been sent, regardless of their access status, via the Courier secure file transfer appliance. Added to the pre-existing capabilities, a user can now

* receive large files securely
* automatically log the access history of files sent – who downloaded what and when
* automatically document the send history of files – what and when was sent to whom

all within the Accellion solution. And these features help enterprise users meet HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley mandates which dictate that your business processes must be clearly documented. The Accellion solution's reports help you document the flow of your business files without requiring additional bureaucratic overhead.

Release 5.5 also addresses a handful of features requested by Accellion customers, end users and IT. For example, users now have the ability to specify CC: and BCC: recipients in addition to identifying people in the TO: field. Another enhancement adds standard and proprietary diagnostic tools in the administration console, so the administrator does not need to run a separate window to fire up one of these utilities.

Still more enhancements we put into Release 5.5 are completely under the hood: we made significant improvements so that the source code is easier to maintain and Accellion can bring out updates to our products more efficiently and effectively in the future.

Definitely a good thing for the many companies around the world that have come to rely on Accellion Courier Secure File Transfer Appliance for secure and reliable file transfer.

ACA Guy

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

CRN and VARBusiness on the Merits and Importance of Accellion's Secure File Transfer Solutions for Value Added Resellers

Summary: Accellion was recognized by VARBusiness as a 2006 Tech Innovator in three product categories. Computer Reseller News (CRN) told its readers that Accellion offers "a better way" to send and receive large files. Find out what the fuss is about.

-----

Accellion Courier Secure File Transfer Appliance was identified by VARBusiness magazine as a 2006 Tech Innovator in multiple categories, including Security, Enterprise Software and Software Infrastructure. Now, if you aren’t familiar with this particular publication, I can tell you that it is one of the premier journals read by companies that recommend, sell and install IT solutions of all sorts (i.e., value added resellers, or VARs).

In its annual Tech Innovators competition, VARBusiness looks at the multitude of IT solutions in the market for small and medium businesses (SMBs) as well as large enterprises. Only a handful of products are nominated for the award, and even fewer are chosen as tops in their respective category – or in Accellion’s case, categories! We are thrilled to be in the company of some very outstanding technology solutions.

The awards were judged by a panel of solution-provider executives and VARBusiness editors. The judges scored the products based on five main points -- usefulness, how new and/or improved the product is, where it sits on the price/performance scale, revenue potential and the "coolness" factor.

These Tech Innovator nominations validate that Accellion Courier SFTA offers a valuable solution for secure file transfer. What’s more, our solution is important not only to our end customers, but also to Accellion’s channel partners who benefit from selling and installing the appliances. (And speaking of our channel partners, I plan to spend a little time in future postings to tell you about our excellent partners. Stay tuned for more.)

VARBusiness isn’t the only publication to validate what Accellion is doing for our customers and partners. A few weeks ago, the magazine CRN (Computer Reseller News) provided an extensive review of the Accellion SFTA solution. Marc Spiwak succinctly captured the Accellion value proposition in his review when he said:

Anyone who regularly transfers files via e-mail knows that the process can be troublesome, and the large attachments quickly fill up an inbox. FTP file transfers also can do the trick, but many users find that to be confusing. Another alternative is to burn a disc and overnight it. But that's expensive and takes a day for the files to be received. Accellion has found a better way with its Courier Secure File Transfer Appliance (SFTA).

Yes, Accellion has a better way, and I invite you to find out more for yourself at www.accellion.com. And don’t be surprised if your solution provider wants to talk to you about this new useful and cool secure file transfer appliance that’s going to give you a better way to send and receive large files. He probably read about in it CRN or VARBusiness.

ACA Guy

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Secure File Transfer Comes of Age in the Era of Pervasive Computing

Summary: Pervasive computing is great, but can you send a 100MB design file easily while on the road? Accellion's secure file transfer solution lets you do exactly that in this age of pervasive computing.

-----

Since the dawn of Internet age, pundits have been tossing out the phrase pervasive computing. It’s the notion that computers fit naturally into your life, and you are able to do whatever you want to do with your computer, whenever you want and wherever you want.

The world is getting closer to truly having pervasive computing. The general populace now access the Internet and its resources from just about anywhere with connectivity via DSL, dial up, Wi-Fi or cellular service. It’s not unusual to see parents sitting on the sidelines of their children’s sporting events checking email. Similarly, between visiting clients, a sales person can sit near a wireless hot spot to connect with corporate and get some work done on the laptop.

In this pervasive (or invasive) computing world, however, the ability to send large files securely with ease has been a major missing piece. Ironically, with the increasing importance of collaborative work flow and the ever-growing file sizes as part of this Internet age, this capability is more important than ever.

Accellion's got your back! We recognize that people need or want to work at odd times and in places other than their offices. Accellion's SFTA gives users the ability to transfer files and folders to other people via the Internet using a common web interface without downloading software or going through a third party site. In other words, there’s no need to be stationed at your office in order to transfer files as long as you have (1) Internet access, and (2) the files you want to send.

The same is true for recipients of the files. All they need is email access to receive the notification and Internet access to be able to access the files via secure links embedded in the email notification.

The pervasive computing version of exchanging large files securely has finally come of age! You don’t have to ask someone in IT for help to post your files to an FTP server. You don’t need to be at a specific computer to send or receives files. You don’t need to be tied into your work network. You can get it all done in pajamas and slippers over a cup of tea.

At the same time, you are not sacrificing enterprise level features such as security or the ability to track what is happening with your files. Those functionalities are built into the Accellion secure file transfer appliance and they are automatically invoked for you. So, you get enterprise level security and management without the enterprise level hassle!

Can world peace be far behind?

ACA Guy