GlobalScape

Remember enterprise file transfer? Micro-to-mainframe links? FTP sites? In a sign of the times, one 11-year-old firm with roots in all of the above is out to show that "established" IT technologies can be just as hip as new ones -- and probably cost less.

Since 1996, GlobalScape has made a small but reasonably successful venture of selling managed file transfer software. Based in San Antonio, it's chugged along against other file transfer specialists like Tumbleweed (which likewise has broadened into email data protection).

The firm has 75 employees, mostly in Texas, with about 17 percent in another office in Andover, Mass. It claims more than 6,500 enterprise-level customers and over 2 million FTP client licenses worldwide.

GlobalScape's latest product, a Secure Ad Hoc Transfer (SAT) module for its Enhanced File Transfer (EFT) server, allows remote users Web access to secure files existing on a central server -- without requiring them to contact the administrator to set up a separate account. It costs $4,995.

One SMB user says GlobalScape's EFT has fueled internal efficiencies. Brian Smith, systems administrator at Grange Insurance of Columbus, Ohio, uses the product to give up to 15 field agents Web access to transfer images associated with insurance claims to and from a mainframe back at headquarters. The product has reduced the load on email, saved on associated storage, and streamlined claims processing.