ESoft has moved aggressively into Internet security, a natural extension of the broadband business the company works closely with, spokeswoman Nina Piccinini said. Businesses buy InstaGate EX or EX2 to provide the firewalls that block unwelcome visitors to their Internet networks. When a business buys InstaGate, they gain access to eSoft's SoftPak Director, a Web site featuring a slew of security tools, including SpamFilter. About 10 SoftPaks, ranging from anti-virus protection to Web filtering, are offered, and the company expects to have more than 30 SoftPaks by year's end. Businesses upgrade as they need to, Piccinini said.
Prices increase as the number of users increases.
From there, the software can navigate junk e-mail away from an inbox. The cross-checks with the databases, coupled with customization, make SpamFilter unique, said Rob Peterson, a product engineer for the company. The predecessor software to SpamFilter only allowed a user to type in addresses of unwanted e-mail senders, but the addition of the database checks makes the technology more sophisticated, he said. The company says a study by online research eMarketer shows spam accounting for 10 percent of all e-mail in the United States. By 2003, 75.6 billion e-mail messages will be unsolicited, according to eMarketer.