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Foothill-De Anza Community College District Chooses Abaca to Provide District-Wide Email Protection
(Marketwire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) SAN JOSE, CA, June 17 / MARKET WIRE/ --
Abaca
Technology Corporation, an innovator in email protection and messaging
security, announced today that after rigorous testing, the Foothill-De Anza
Community College District has chosen the new Abaca? Email Protection
Gateway (TM) EPG 3000 and ReceiverNet(TM) Premium
Service to provide email security for faculty, staff and service personnel
at its two colleges and district offices.
"Our district has earned a national reputation for its innovative use of
information technology in creating a dynamic learning environment for a
diverse student body," said Fred Sherman, vice chancellor and chief
technology officer of the Foothill-De Anza
Community College District. "We envision a community where technology
is current, integrated, secure, reliable and available anywhere at any
time. By implementing Abaca's industry-leading email protection solution we
have taken a key step forward in achieving this vision and maintaining our
status as a twenty-first-century learning institution."
Founded more than 40 years ago and located in the heart of Silicon Valley,
the Foothill-De Anza Community College District serves the cities of
Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Stanford,
Sunnyvale, and parts of San Jose. It is one of the largest community
college districts in the United States, providing credit classes for about
44,000 students per quarter. In addition, both of its colleges are active
members of the League for Innovation in the Community College, a national
consortium of leading two-year institutions.
As an academic institution, Foothill-De Anza is committed to providing an
open, consensus-building environment that ensures the free exchange of
ideas. Therefore, the district needed to find a way to protect email users
from spam, viruses and other email attacks without blocking their access to
important information. In January 2004, Foothill-De Anza installed a
firewall to provide anti-spam and anti-virus protection. The firewall uses
pattern-detecting software to identify suspect messages and performed
fairly well at first, blocking 84% of spam and viruses. But after three
years and 75 million messages, it was clear that the stand-alone firewall
could not keep up with the increased traffic or the growing sophistication
of spammers. Complaints from email users began to soar, and the district
decided to look for a complementary solution.
"We wanted to test solutions that took an innovative approach instead of
using the same signature-based algorithm as our current firewall," said
Chien Shih, director of information technology at the Foothill-De Anza
Community College District. "Abaca's receiver-based technology really stood
out. Instead of scanning for patterns, it examines the relationships
between people who exchange email. When something out of the ordinary
happens, it checks for spam."
Testing Methodology: Statistics and Subjective Feedback
Foothill-De Anza's IT team decided to test the Abaca appliance and
networked service solution side-by-side with one other well known anti-spam
solution. First they identified 26-30 email users to serve as the test
group. Next they established four test criteria:
1. False positive rate
2. Spam not blocked
3. Ease of use
4. Subjective feedback from users
After collecting baseline statistics, the IT team tested each anti-spam
product for 30 days. At the end of each test, they collected another set of
statistics, as well as user feedback, about the pros and cons of each
solution.
In the end, it wasn't even close. Abaca emerged as the clear winner on all
fronts.
Superior Performance at a Better Price
"The statistics we got back from the Abaca test really surprised us,"
recalled Shih. "Abaca's false positive rate was 0.17%, and the spam not
blocked rate was 0.79% -- less than 1%! The other solution we tested gave
us statistical results of 1.87% and 2.54%, respectively. That's a huge
difference given the enormous amount of email coming into our district."
The district's test group also gave Abaca's appliance and networked service
solution superior marks for ease of use. They particularly liked Abaca's
flexible quarantine feature, which blocks questionable email but allows
users to easily retrieve any messages they want to see. Abaca's intuitive,
user-friendly interface got high marks from the test group as well.
"We purposely picked email users who would be hard to please, the ones who
complained the loudest about the spam filling up their mailboxes," said
Shih. "After testing Abaca's solution, they started sending us letters of
thanks and congratulations instead of complaints."
In addition to delivering superior performance, Abaca trounced the
competition on price and total cost of ownership as well. Not only is
Abaca's appliance and networked service solution less expensive than the
other solution Foothill-De Anza tested, it is a self-mentoring system that
updates itself automatically and requires virtually no ongoing system
administration. Given the district's limited IT budget and resources,
Abaca's dynamic self learning (teach-to-learn) capability was welcome news
for Shih.
Based on these impressive test results, the Foothill-De Anza Community
College District decided to implement the enterprise-class Abaca EPG 3000
with ReceiverNet Premium Service alongside its existing firewall. The
district is in the first phase of its deployment, with 236 Central Services
employees currently supported by Abaca's anti-spam solution. By the end of
June 2008, all of the district's faculty, staff and services personnel will
be supported.
"Abaca's extremely sophisticated email security technology enables us to
set new benchmarks in blocking spam, viruses and other email assaults,"
said Leo Jolicoeur, chief executive officer of Abaca Technology
Corporation. "No other company comes close to delivering spam block rates
above 99 percent while maintaining extremely low false positive rates and
no other company offers email protection at the competitive price point we
do. When you look at Foothill-De Anza's test results and add up all the
numbers, Abaca is clearly the right answer for higher education customers."
About Abaca Technology Corporation
Abaca Technology Corporation is an innovator in email protection and
messaging security. Abaca's patent-pending technology, ReceiverNet(TM),
offers an advanced approach in the fight against spam -- providing
unprecedented levels of accuracy and guaranteeing 99 percent spam
filtration. Abaca has created a portfolio of innovative products and
services based upon this core technology, thereby assuring users
unparalleled messaging protection from spam, as well as viruses and
phishing attacks. Abaca is a privately held company headquartered in San
Jose, California. For more information about Abaca, please visit
www.abaca.com.
Abaca?, Email Protection Gateway(TM), Abaca? Email Protection
Gateway(TM), ReceiverNet(TM), and the Abaca logos are trademarks of Abaca
Technology Corporation and may be registered in the United States and/or
other jurisdictions. Other trademarks shown are the property of their
respective owners.
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Media Contact:
Donna Candelori
Candelori Communications Inc.
408-774-3414Email Contact
Copyright ? 2008 Marketwire
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