Aventail, one of the preeminent providers of SSL VPN networks, hit a milestone today when it announced that 300 organizations are now using its Connect Mobile solution to securely connect their mobile workforces to network resources.

Among the organizations now relying the solution are Mitsubishi Electronic Power Products, Trans State Airlines and the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

An add-on to Aventail’s new ST2 SSL VPN, Connect Mobile is an integrated solution for secure, all-remote access. Aventail claims it is “the market’s first SSL VPN designed and certified for Windows Mobile PDAs, providing an ‘in office’ experience for end users connecting to email, client/server applications and other corporate resources.”

Aventail’s ST2 provides secure access to any application from desktops and laptops, as well as access to any Web application from any mobile device, including Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and DoCoMo devices.

Organizations are increasingly issuing mobile devices, such as BlackBerries and Treos, to their employees to help increase productivity. But in order for these devices to fully serve their purpose, they must truly integrate with all business systems - software and data – and perhaps most importantly, they must be secure. Aventail’s SSL VPN solutions, including Mobile Connect, provide a super-secure way for mobile workers to connect to the corporate network. The advanced encryption methods mean mobile workers can access and use almost any type application, whether it is email or calendaring, or any number of corporate applications. Users can click on links in emails and immediately approve requisitions or review documents, instead of waiting to log in from their laptop.

In addition to providing encryption, Connect Mobile also provides highly granular access controls, end point control to determine the health of the device, and device watermarking to protect lost or stolen devices.

Connect Mobile can be deployed on demand from a Web portal, or installed directly on the mobile device. It enables users to securely access to their email and client/server applications just as if they were on the corporate LAN.

“We have been providing secure remote access to our employees with the Aventail SSL VPN for a while with optimal results,” said Michael Doak, network operations manager, Mitsubishi Electronic Power Products Inc., in a press release. “We have now extended these SSL VPN capabilities to our PDA users with Connect Mobile, keeping them as connected and productive as if they were in the office. Using Connect Mobile for our PDA users is easier, more secure, and more economical than deploying and supporting a separate mobile email solution.”

For more information, visit www.aventail.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.