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Symantec Unveils E-mail Security Appliances

Symantec entered the e-mail security appliance market Monday with the introduction of three gateway and network edge devices that promise to reduce spam and defend against incoming viruses and worms.

The two new lines -- the Mail Security 8100 and the 8200 series -- will be available at the end of February, said Symantec, and aren't meant to compete with long-time partners such as IronPort, which sells its own appliances based on Symantec's software technologies.

The 8160, the only model in the 8100 line, will cut unwanted e-mail heading to corporate networks and Internet service provider in half, said Daniel Freeman, the product manager for the two new appliance lines.

"It will eliminate 50 percent of all [unwanted] incoming mail before it hits the gateway," said Freeman. The 8160, which is positioned at the network edge, is designed to reduce e-mail infrastructure and storage costs and trim administrative labor now devoted to managing the huge volumes of mail, most of which is spam.

"The 8160 filters at the TCP/IP level, not the SMTP level," said Freeman in explaining how the appliance shapes traffic flow by stopping spam on the spammer's servers.

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