FaceTime Survey: IT Managers OK Social Networking, as Long as It's Secure and Compliant

BELMONT, CA--(Marketwire - July 1, 2009) - FaceTime Communications -- the leading provider of solutions enabling the safe use of Web 2.0 and unified communications in the enterprise -- found in a survey that Social Networking is widely accepted by IT respondents, and 51 percent plan to beef up security within the next 12 months.

Compared with a related survey in fall 2008 ("The Collaborative Internet: Usage Trends, IT Attitudes and End User Impact"), many more IT professionals are reporting that social media is in use at their companies, up from 60 percent six months ago to 85 percent now.

FaceTime surveyed more than 1,100 prospects, customers and other IT professionals identified through Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn between May 21 and June 1.

"The widespread acceptance of social networking as a reality for the corporate network is a relatively new phenomenon," said Nishant Jadhav, director of Product Management for FaceTime Communications. "However, managers are already recognizing the business value of social networking with 31 percent of respondents seeing significant business value and only 21 percent seeing no business value."

More than half of respondents would like to see specific support for Web 2.0 integrated into their Web security platform and nearly 20 percent would deploy dedicated solutions to control Web 2.0.

"The reality that real-time communications and Web 2.0 applications are highly evasive is sinking in," continued Nishant Jadhav. "These applications are designed to get around Web filtering, firewalls and other traditional security measures through port crawling, tunneling and onion routing."

Other findings:

--  30 percent would not consider a Web security platform that did not
    have the ability to secure and manage social networking and Web 2.0
    applications
--  32 percent said social networking is a critical business collaboration
    tool
--  87 percent personally use social networks on the corporate network
--  80 percent said information leakage is a primary concern with social
    networking use
--  15 percent said social networking is "blocked" on the corporate
    network
--  51 percent estimate that employees use social networks at work more
    than an hour per day
    

Download the survey report Social Networking in the Enterprise: Working, or Not Working.

About FaceTime's Unified Security Gateway

FaceTime's Unified Security Gateway (USG) is a secure Web gateway appliance that integrates Web 2.0 application detection and control, gateway malware protection and Web filtering with FaceTime's best-in-class IM hygiene and archiving. With this single point of control, more than 2,100 Web and real-time applications and many thousands of social networking applications can be tracked, monitored and controlled to give organizations complete visibility into all Internet communications, and simplify administration.

With USG, IT administrators can set time of day or usage policies across all applications and view detailed reports to gain complete visibility into employees' use of the network -- not only in terms of browsing but also specific Web 2.0 usage. This complete visibility and control provides IT with a distinct advantage in managing network resources in addition to securing against inbound malware and putting controls in place to prevent outbound data leakage.

About FaceTime Communications

FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of instant messaging, Web usage and Unified Communications platforms. Ranked number one by IDC for five consecutive years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by more than 1,000 customers for security, management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime supports or has strategic partnerships with all leading public and enterprise IM network providers, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, IBM and Jabber.

FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-FACE. The FaceForward blog, at http://blog.facetime.com, offers thoughts and opinions about the changing nature of Internet applications.

FaceTime, FaceTime Communications, IMAuditor, FaceTime Unified Security Gateway, FaceTime Security Labs, FaceTime Insight, SpywareGuide.com and the FaceTime logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of FaceTime Communications, Inc. Other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact Information: FaceTime Media Contact: Joshua Barnes A&R Edelman 650-762-2865