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SEATTLE – August 6, 2012. WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader in manageable business security solutions, today announced a ground-breaking change for the unified threat management (UTM) market with the release of the New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series network security appliances. As next-generation UTMs, the New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series sports the fastest throughput in its price class without sacrificing security efficacy, manageability and ease of use.

WatchGuard notes that the New XTM 5 Series gains substantive performance improvements compared to the previous XTM 5 series models. Specifically, appliance packet filtering increased nearly 40 percent, gateway antivirus is 190 percent faster, intrusion prevention (IPS) is up 220 percent, and overall UTM performance is more than 150 percent improved.

"For midsize businesses, there is no faster, fully featured and easy to manage UTM appliance on the market today than the New XTM 5 Series," said Roger Klorese, Director of Product Management at WatchGuard Technologies. "Packed with key security features as well as next-generation Application Control capabilities, the New XTM 5 Series gives businesses an unparalleled solution to block the latest web threats, as well as the ability to improve employee productivity."

New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series – Foundation for Next-Generation UTM

Ideal for businesses with 50 to 500 employees, the New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series is available in four new models: XTM 515, XTM 525, XTM 535 and the top-performance XTM 545. Basic firewall throughput starts at 2 Gbps for the XTM 515 and increases up to 3.5 Gbps for the XTM 545. Throughput with the full security offered by enabling next-generation UTM services starts at 850Mbps for the XTM 515 and increases up to 1.23Gbps for the XTM 545.

Security that is driven by awareness of application and user context makes a UTM appliance truly "next generation." With WatchGuard Application Control, businesses now gain in-depth, granular control over Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and hundreds more. Not only does WatchGuard Application Control protect against the next -generation of threats that leverage these popular applications, now businesses can rein in how individual employees use such applications, directly from the corporate firewall.

In addition to the integrated firewall, IPS and Application Control features that are the bare essentials for next-generation security, customers step up to full next generation UTM with the option to add Gateway Anti-virus, WebBlocker, spamBlocker and Reputation Enabled Defense – WatchGuard's context-aware, cloud-based security service – to best meet their business needs.

Also, the New WatchGuard XTM 5 Series takes advantage of the ability to create highly secure virtual private network (VPN) tunnels for Apple iPad, iPhone and other iOS-based devices, as well as smartphones and tablets powered by Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or later. This way, businesses can provide complete protection even for popular devices that employees bring into the office.

"It is critical for our network security to be as strong as possible, but also very fast," said Jason Omens, IT Director for OfficeXpats, a co-working and conference center facility. "Not only is the New XTM 5 Series powerful, but what I especially like is how easy it is to manage, as well as how much information the reports and logs provide. Dollar for dollar, nothing beats it."