Israeli information security company Quality Bytes Ltd. is officially entering the Eastern European market. The company has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Romanian IT company Global Technology Services, which focuses on the small and mid-sized business (SMB) market, Quality Bytes’ target market.
Quality Bytes was founded five years ago and operates mostly in Israel. The company’s product, Server Express, is a multi-application security solution located at the enterprise gateway. The product allows the enterprise to define its IT security characteristics. The system includes a firewall, anti-virus, intrusion protection system (IPS), bandwidth management, virtual private network (VPN) management, and quality of service (QoS).
The Server Express acts as a kind of demiliterized zone (DMZ) at the enterprise gateway where servers are placed for Internet, Intranet, and external links. The interface is in Hebrew for Israeli customers, and allows an enterprise’s policy definitions and access to services via a permit/ban sign on the server.
Quality Bytes CEO Haim Yaffe says the ability to manage bandwidth (setting priorities for information coming in from the Internet) makes it possible for the system to adapt to enterprises have no ability to use bandwidth. “We’re successful in Eastern Europe, for example, because of the high cost of bandwidth there. Our solution makes it possible for fairly small companies to better utilize communications.”
Quality Bytes also says its cost a tenth of the average cost of multi-application security solutions gives it an edge in penetrating the small market. Yaffe says the company plans to add wider protection capabilities (secure socket layer virtual private network (SSL VPN)) to the next version of Server Express, and later to add IP switchboard solutions.
Yaffe says the present agreement in Eastern Europe will make it possible for Quality Bytes to achieve over $1 million in sales in 2006, double last year’s figure. The company claims to have several other customers in Romania and Bulgaria, as well as 400 customers in Israel, including 40% of kibbutz enterprise networks.
Yaffe and Quality Bytes VP development Isaac Aaron founded the company with their own money. The company was founded in 2001 when it was almost impossible to raise capital, and the company has operated until now without external investors. Yaffe said that the company would shortly try to hold its first financing round in order to speed up development.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on August 10, 2006
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