As Australia heads into uncharted and potentially troubled financial times, the demand for more affordable IT solutions that provide real business benefits is growing.

Netbox Blue, a world leader in innovative internet and email security and management has identified several key areas where businesses can make a real difference to the day to day operating costs of any sized business with next generation technology.

"There's a debate raging over what impact the economic meltdown will have on IT spending," Netbox Blue Chairman John Fison says.

"There's no doubt that companies will put off decisions on hardware while there is so much uncertainty, but what businesses need to be looking at is cost-effective IT solutions that will not only pay for themselves in a short space of time but provide genuine value."

Netbox Blue offers a suite of security and management features in one easy-to-manage appliance. The Netbox includes a world-class firewall, spam and web filtering, anti-virus protection, internet monitoring and reporting and quota management.

"The Netbox deals with a range of issues with the one appliance," Mr Fison says." The spam filter ensures staff members aren't wasting time on sorting through junk mail, while a combination of web filtering, internet reporting and internet quota management can be used to make sure that employees aren't downloading music videos or surfing social networking sites when they are meant to be dealing with clients."

"By bring these solutions into one appliance the Netbox also saves IT managers a great deal of time."

Faith Lutheran College, Redlands in Queensland is using Netbox Blue to protect almost 1000 students and teachers from inappropriate web content and to secure the school's network.

"The manageability of the Netbox is far and above anything else I've seen. We did see other demos of products out there but we liked the Netbox because it's simple to manage even though it's a complex device," Faith Lutheran College, Redlands ICT Systems Manager Allan Richards says.

"It‘s dropped the time I spend supporting our web and email filtering by 20 hours a week. It's made a big difference."

Improve employee productivity 

• Spam filtering eliminates time wasted on junk email.
• Internet monitoring and reporting identifies where time is being wasted to enable managers to create appropriate policies.
• Web filtering blocks access to inappropriate and non-productive web content.

Reduce costs

• Quota management can control the cost of excess downloads by individuals and then be used to tie in with billing to departments or individuals, as required.
• NetBox Blue's built-in Advanced Web Proxy Server caches web pages to reduce download costs for frequently accessed sites.
• Reduce the cost of ownership of the total solution with one package. One solution with a single support agreement is less expensive than multiple solutions, multiple servers and multiple support contracts.

Maximize network effectiveness

• PipePlusTM offers businesses an inexpensive means of upgrading their internet speed by adding multiple low cost links (as opposed to upgrading to an expensive single high speed link)
• PipePlusTM delivers business continuity, improves productivity and reduces frustration.
• For companies looking to make savings on their phone bills with VoIP, traffic shaping ensures a network has sufficient bandwidth to provide high call quality. PipePlusTM technology ensures that voice calls and other data communication are protected. If one link fails another will automatically take over.
• Data compression technology can dramatically improve inter-branch connectivity. The technology is delivered where Netboxes provide secure VPN links between branch offices.

Improved manageability of network

• One integrated appliance for network security and management needs eliminates disparate solutions that are time consuming and costly to manage.