Press Releases & Announcements

PureMessage is #1 Anti-Spam Solution for Higher Education

ActiveState Spam Protection Gets an A+ with Top-Tier Schools Including Stanford, Duke, and Cornell

VANCOUVER, BC, 08/20/2003

As students head back to school this fall, many will experience a dramatic decrease in the volume of spam and viruses that land in their email in-box. Behind the scenes, the IT departments of leading institutions world-wide are taking control of their email with PureMessage�, a server-based email filtering solution by ActiveState�. ActiveState provides anti-spam software to more than 80 of the world's largest and most prestigious educational institutions, including: Duke University, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, Cornell University, New York University, University of North Carolina, University of Washington, Texas A&M, Temple University, University of Leeds, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. PureMessage is also used by hundreds of leading corporations worldwide. Scalability and Reliability The education sector is challenged by the need to stop the growing spam problem with limited budgets and resources. However, many IT departments at educational institutions operate on a scale similar to a Fortune 500 company, serving up to tens of thousands of users, all of whom require access to email, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Heterogeneous IT infrastructures across multiple departments and schools, and the use of a variety of UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh email clients, often create a diverse and complex environment in which to deploy new products. PureMessage by ActiveState provides a cost-effective, comprehensive email filtering solution for the education sector that scales to accommodate hundreds of thousands of users, and can be easily integrated with existing systems. Using a unique combination of heuristics, spam directories, spam signatures, and learning algorithms, PureMessage safely identifies and quarantines more than 98% of spam. As a result, schools ensure computer resources are being used efficiently and end-users regain productivity losses caused by spam. Customers are also attracted to PureMessage's per-CPU licensing, which further reduces costs by removing the need to track and report individual users. Ranked as College of the Year among Research Institutions, Indiana University advocates the PureMessage solution. Says Rob Henderson, associate facilities director for the Computer Science department, "The utility versus cost of PureMessage is exceptional. I would not hesitate to recommend PureMessage to my educational colleagues." Protecting Academic Freedom and Privacy In recent months, academic IT departments have become overwhelmed with spam complaints from end users, elevating internal concerns about the institution�s reputation as a thought-leader, and introducing the possibility of lawsuits related to unsolicited email. Yet many schools have a policy protecting academic freedom and privacy, which must be balanced with the need to protect their IT infrastructures and end users. Using the "tag and pass" option, PureMessage automates the spam identification process, while providing the ability for end users to determine how they want to handle such messages. "Whether you're an administrator managing an international business school, or a student communicating with a professor online, email has become just as important function in academia as it has in the workplace and the home. That function is being threatened by spammers' ability to evolve new spam techniques, and obtain valid student and faculty email addresses over the Internet," said Chris Kraft, director of PureMessage product management, ActiveState. "PureMessage provides the education sector with a cost-effective solution to define, monitor, and manage their email." PureMessage by ActiveState education customers include: Stanford University � Founded in 1885, Stanford is one of the United States' most prestigious schools, boasting a current enrollment of approximately 14,000. The Stanford team evaluated several products before selecting PureMessage, choosing the software for its effectiveness (low false positives and false negatives), performance (no effect on mail throughput), ease of maintenance, and cost. PureMessage actively protects 22,000 Stanford user accounts, and the system processes approximately half a million messages daily. Indiana University (IU) � IU is a public institution with eight campuses throughout the State of Indiana, and an all-campus enrollment of 93,775 (based on fall semester 2000-2001). The CS Department takes advantage of PureMessage's ability to add the spam probability ranking to the subject line of each suspicious email. In this fashion, the end user is given full control over their spam emails and how to handle them. University of Washington � The University of Washington has more than 34,000 staff and faculty, 24,000 clinicians, 29,000 undergraduates, and 10,000 others enrolled in professional and graduate programs. After evaluating several potential solutions, the University chose PureMessage for its cost, support, extensibility, ease of integration to its existing environment, and flexibility. About PureMessage PureMessage by ActiveState is a server-based email filtering solution providing spam and virus protection, and enabling the creation and enforcement of other email hygiene policies for inbound and outbound messages. PureMessage safely identifies and quarantines spam using a combination of heuristics, spam directories, and spam signatures, delivering the most effective spam filtering with low IT administration and end-user effort. PureMessage supports AIX, HP-UX, FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris. More details are available at: www.ActiveState.com/PureMessage. About ActiveState Corp. ActiveState enables enterprises and IT professionals to increase productivity and organizational efficiency. PureMessage by ActiveState empowers organizations to take control of their email communications by protecting against spam and viruses, and enforcing email policy. Additional information on ActiveState's industrial strength anti-spam software for enterprises and professional tools for programmers is available at: www.ActiveState.com. Media & Analyst Inquiries: Lori Pike, ActiveState 604.808.6655 Katey Stewart, Horn Group 415.905.4019 ActiveState and PureMessage are trademarks of ActiveState Corp. All other company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. � ActiveState Corporation 2003.