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By Jon Bernstein, 24 June 1999 00:35

NEWS UK firm, MessageNet, has launched what it claims is the first off-site managed service for Internet email. Escan is aimed primarily at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and provides a 'content firewall' against unsolicited and offensive emails, as well as viruses carried via email attachments. It will also prevent messages with large attachments, such as video clips, from entering customer networks. According to MessageNet MD, John Cheney, Escan's major benefit is that it is an off-site service. He said that unlike similar services, such as Content Technologies' MimeSweeper, Escan stops offending emails at source, rather than having to deal with them once they are on a company's network. He said: "No IT solution is ever foolproof. What we're offering is significantly more protection than people have already." All inbound and outbound emails will be routed through one of two service centres: one at MessageNet's headquarters in Berkshire and the other at Telehouse in London's Docklands. Users will experience a 15 second degradation in delivery time as a result of this, said Cheney. PSINet and BT Highway will act as Internet service providers (ISPs) for the service.
Escan goes live next month, with set-up prices starting at £1,500 for a company with 250 users. Ongoing charges will be on a per-email basis, typically 1.5p for each message scanned. Security and network integrator, Integralis, which owns a majority stake in MessageNet, will resell the service.