While the story and its companion piece "How to Evaluate and Use Enterprise Instant Messaging Security Tools" are mostly accurate, informative, and well done, we believe that it's important for readers to know that the writer's assertion that "Akonix has a large, installed base of clients with many "marquee" names, although it has lost some momentum compared with its chief rivals" is based on a research report published in February 2006. Gartner's research for that report was conducted in the latter half of 2005. (See Marketscope for Instant Messaging Hygiene, 2006, Peter Firstbrook, Gartner Inc., February 9, 2006, p.5. "The company has one of the largest installed bases of clients, with many `marquee’ names; however, Akonix seems to have lost some momentum recently").

The writer also mentions in the companion article that Akonix "partners with Frontbridge Technologies". Frontbridge has not existed since August 2005, having been acquired by Microsoft. (The former Frontbridge is now part of Microsoft Exchange Hosted Archive services.)

As Akonix was not contacted by the writer or CSO for this article, I wanted to provide an update, especially as Gartner conducted the research for its report in late 2005, and it is now outdated.

Since the Gartner report's publication in February 2006, Akonix products have been chosen by hundreds of leading firms, educational institutions and government agencies, including ExxonMobil, AT&T (the former SBC, BellSouth, Cingular Wireless, and AT&T were all customers prior to the merger), Sprint Nextel, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Comcast, Tenet Healthcare, France Telecom, O2 (the UK's largest mobile communications provider), Universal Music Group, Warner Music, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Media, ING, and many many others.

Akonix won the 2007 Editor's Choice award from Network Computing in the IM security category. Our products earned the top score in SC Magazine's reviews of IM security products. Windows IT Pro advised its readers "Bottom Line... Akonix A-Series security appliances beat the competition. So how should you approach enterprise IM deployment? I recommend you start by implementing the Akonix solution".

Akonix is proud to participate in long-standing partnerships with Autonomy ZANTAZ, C2C, EMC (Velocity Partner), Fortiva, Global Relay, HP, IBM, Intel, Intradyn, Iron Mountain, Jabber Inc., Microsoft (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner), Quest Software, Research In Motion (BlackBerry Alliance Partner), Sophos, Symantec (Symantec Technology Enabled Partner), and Vericept.

Akonix has positive momentum. With a new generation of security appliances introduced after the Gartner report, along with new product modules providing policy management, security, and archiving for BlackBerry text messaging, RightFax faxes, VoIP, and Microsoft online conferencing and unified communications, the facts would point to an accelerating momentum.

Don Montgomery
Vice President of Marketing
Akonix Systems, Inc.