Now, however, Cyberoam has opened a sales office in New Jersey, and it's looking to sign up distributors in North America. CCNY is the first to be inked.
Why did Cyberoam decide on Linux as its embedded environment? "Flexibility," Patel responded. In addition to creating an interface aimed at "ease of use," Cyberoam has added device drivers to the embedded platform.
An anti-spyware appliance from mi5networks, also shown at InfoSecurity, is based on embedded Linux, too. But "hardened" security is the main reason why.
Doug Camplejohn, CEO and founder of mi5, said that his company opted to use Fedora Linux because of the need for a hardened kernel.
The appliance uses three different scanning technologies to check incoming traffic for spyware on-the-fly. "We can block spyware before it 'phones home,'" Camplejohn contended.
Meanwhile, other vendors are giving thought to enabling their Windows-based products for use on Linux servers and/or desktops.
Although the news hasn't yet been announced, Secured eMail has now definitely decided to produce a Java client for its Simple Encryption Platform, a system that encrypts mail authored on Microsoft Exchange and Windows editions of Lotus Notes, according to Daniel Nilsson, business development manager.
Via the Java client, users will be able to view the encrypted mail on Linux and other non-Windows-based mail systems, Nilsson told LinuxPlanet.
Also for access from non-Windows systems, DolphinSecureWare, Inc. provides a Web browser interface to Purifile, a new software product for removing "sensitive information" that users might have hidden--either accidentally or deliberately--inside Microsoft Office files.
Dolphin, another federal government contractor, first developed Purifile for the Dept. of Defense, said John E. Ivory, program manager, and John P. Cappelli, commercial sales manager.
The company is now in the process of introducing the Microsoft Office file inspection application to the commercial space.
At the same time, Global Technologies Group, Inc. (GTGI) is planning an Apple Macintosh client for SecureDisc, its Windows XP-based system for encrypting CD- and DVD-ROMs.
"After the Mac client, our next client will probably be for [desktop] Linux," said GTGI's George W. Allen.
One common use of SecureDisc is to encrypt payroll files. Once the files are encrypted on the disks, the files are sent by overnight mail to payroll processing firms, according to Allen.
But other vendors aren't so sure yet about adding either Linux enablement or access to their currently 'Windows only' line-ups.
"It's all about demand," said Bobby New, federal sales engineer at SenForce, the makers of a system known as Endpoint Security Suite.
"In other words, in order to [start offering products for Linux], we'd need to have a request from a customer," according to New.
But at Promisec, makers of Spectator Professional software for endpoint security management, the thinking around staying on 'Windows only' is somewhat different.
"We're concentrating on 'end points' right now, and about 98 percent of the end points out there run on Windows," said Hillik Koffer, co-founder and VP of business development
"If we do anything with Linux, it'll be on Linux servers. And we don't want to do that right now, because it would only confuse the issue. What we're talking with [customers] about now is end point security."
But crossplatform support works the other way around, too. For instance, long-time Linux and Unix player Symark recently came out with PowerKeeper, a "hardened" appliance for managing administrative passwords for Red Hat and Novel SuSE servers and workstation desktops, as well as for Windows servers and desktops, Unix, IBM AS/400, Cisco routers, and multivendor databases and firewalls.
"There's quite a need out there for Windows administrators to be able to manage passwords, too," Davies told LinuxPlanet.
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