Contact Us Resource Center RSS How to Buy  

› Home › News & Events › Press Releases

Tumbleweed Unleashes Latest Version of MailGate

Latest Version Combines Intent Based Filtering and Dynamic Anti-Spam Services

Redwood City, CA – September 13, 2004 – Tumbleweed® Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:TMWD), a leading provider of secure Internet messaging software and appliances for enterprises and government agencies, announced today the 2.2 release of the company’s MailGate, an award-winning Linux based appliance used to fight spam and viruses. In addition to existing Intent-Based Filtering (IBF™) artificial intelligence technology in the Tumbleweed MailGate appliance, MailGate 2.2 introduces Tumbleweed’s Dynamic Anti-spam Service™ (DAS) as an additional spam defense. This Internet-based subscription service updates the Tumbleweed MailGate with new heuristic spam defenses as they are published, similar to the way anti-virus engines work.

Tumbleweed MailGate combines both proactive and reactive approaches to fighting spam, delivering 98% capture rates with extremely low false positives. On the proactive side, Tumbleweed’s Intent-Based Filtering™ employs artificial intelligence technology to recognize spam messages like a human reader would, and quickly eliminate them from the email stream. On the reactive side, Tumbleweed’s Dynamic Anti-spam Service publishes heuristic anti-spam updates to MailGate every hour, allowing it to identify and block spam that has been previously analyzed by Tumbleweed’s global Message Protection Lab. In addition, LDAP support for authentication and recipient verification provides additional defenses against spoofed email, spam and viruses. Taken together, MailGate’s anti-spam technologies deliver one of the best combinations of high capture rate and low false positive rate in the industry.

Administrators can install and configure MailGate in less than 30 minutes. MailGate goes immediately to work, eliminating junk email while letting good email through. Administrators can set global policies, and users may also customize their own filter settings. A simple web interface lets users access quarantined messages and filtering options. MailGate’s high performance, fast install, and low maintenance provide one of the lowest Total Costs of Ownership (TCO) of any solution on the market.

Tumbleweed MailGate also protects the enterprise against email viruses, worms, Trojans, and other malicious code that can cripple the network or steal confidential data. MailGate offers a choice of anti-virus engines - either the McAfee Olympus Engine or Kaspersky Anti-Virus Engine. Using one of these optional anti-virus products, MailGate scans every message and removes suspicious code or infected attachments before they can harm the organization.

"Despite legislative and technical remedies, email threats continue to undermine business processes and productivity," said Jeff Smith, Chairman and CEO of Tumbleweed. “Tumbleweed helps curb spam, viruses, worms and other malicious email attacks by combating them with one of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence technology and persistent services that constantly analyze and identify new spam messages. Taken together, MailGate’s anti-spam technologies deliver one of the highest capture rate and one of the lowest false positive rates in the industry."
Pricing and Availability
The MailGate is available immediately and will be sold through Tumbleweed's direct inside and reseller sales channels in the USA and Europe. For additional information visit www.tumbleweed.com.

About Tumbleweed’s MailGate Appliance
MailGate, Tumbleweed’s top-rated Linux appliance, provides email filtering solutions based on Tumbleweed’s proprietary IBF (Intent Based Filtering) technology. IBF technology uses artificial intelligence to determine the intent of an email and then act upon that intent. IBF technology has proven to be effective with 95% filtering and extremely low false positives, easy to update, and inexpensive to maintain. MailGate also provides junk, legitimate, and bulk email categories to give users more control over how their email is categorized. MailGate was rated #1 against major competitors in real-world testing by InfoWorld in February, 2004. More than 100 enterprise customers including organizations such as Cox Communications Middle America, Hammacher-Schlemmer and Purdue University have deployed the MailGate to fight spam.

About Tumbleweed's Dynamic Anti-Spam Service
The Tumbleweed Dynamic Anti-Spam Service (DAS) is rated as a top anti-spam service for large enterprises by Network World magazine, and the product is currently used to block over 32 million spam messages per day on behalf of our customers. DAS is an Internet-based subscription service that updates Tumbleweed's Email Firewall and MailGate 2.2 Appliance with new defenses as they are published, similar to the way anti-virus engines work. Tumbleweed's Message Protection Lab develops and publishes the heuristic updates: the Lab is staffed by experts who continually analyze spam to identify new spammer trends and tactics, and create and publish new heuristics to stop them. The Lab analyzes both spam and legitimate email gathered internationally and provided by enterprise customers, to ensure that the Dynamic Anti-Spam Service minimizes false positives in a business environment.

About Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of secure Internet messaging software and appliances for enterprises and government agencies. By making Internet communications secure, reliable and automated, Tumbleweed's anti-spam email firewall, secure file transfer, secure email, and identity validation solutions help customers significantly reduce the cost of doing business. Tumbleweed products are used to communicate with millions of end-users and tens of thousands of corporations. Tumbleweed has more than 600 enterprise customers, including ABN Amro, Bank of America Securities, Catholic Healthcare West, JP Morgan Chase & Co., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), St. Luke's Episcopal Healthcare System, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Navy and Marine Corps. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. For additional information about Tumbleweed go to www.tumbleweed.com or call 650-216-2000.

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT
Tumbleweed cautions that forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on current plans and expectations, and that a number of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from the guidance given at this time. These factors are described in the Safe Harbor statement below.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect to the features and performance of Tumbleweed’s MailGate 2.2 and Dynamic Anti-Spam solutions. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "potential," "continue," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed's Form 10-K filed March 15, 2004, Form 10-Q filed May 10, 2004, and Form 10-Q filed August 12, 2004.

Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release, including for example its guidance regarding its future performance, which represents the Company's expectations only as of the date of this release and should not be viewed as a statement about the Company's expectations after such date. Although this release may remain available on the Company's website or elsewhere, its continued availability does not indicate that the Company is reaffirming or confirming any of the information contained herein.