Phoenix Technologies announces FailSafe 16 October, 2007 By Vanessa Ho

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According to IDC Corp., there will be 850 million mobile workers worldwide by 2009, likely resulting in more incidences of device loss and theft. The most common mobile device stolen was the laptop and in most cases, management and security of mobile devices have been overlooked.

"You not only lose your device and data [but] you also run the risk of identity theft and personal financial loss," said Gaurav Banga, chief technology officer and senior vice president of engineering with Phoenix.

With FailSafe, users can encrypt, lock and even destroy data on lost laptops to protect sensitive or private information. Information on the laptop can also be encrypted to prevent data theft resulting from stolen laptops. Users and IT managers could remotely manage mobile PCs, much like mobile phones are managed, through an intuitive Web interface.

Banga added that FailSafe also offers GPS and IP tracking to determine an exact or approximate location of where the PC might be. Also, FailSafe can tap into a PC's Web cam to snap a picture of the thief to determine location and use forensic data like keyboard logger to see if sensitive data has been compromised.

As well, when a device fails or is lost, the data on that device can be easily restored to a new device.

"So, when an executive misplaces a mobile device, which contains sensitive data -- not only can you wipe the lost device, but you can get the executive up and running with their backed-up data quickly and easily," Banga said.

"We've seen a lot of laptop security cases and [saw] a huge market projection," added Shauli Chaudhuri, vice president of marketing with Phoenix. "We believe that none of the solutions out there are comprehensive; they are point solutions and mix and match. Most people in the world aren't tech savvy. They don't need to understand the technology but have something at their fingertips to make it easy to manage [laptop usage and security]."

She added that Phoenix's OEM partners were also asking for more value-added security and management features at the BIOS level.

For Phoenix's OEM partners, FailSafe gives them access to new revenue opportunity by offering an advanced mobile PC management solution to end users that creates brand loyalty and helps their customers solve a current asset-related problem. As well, the solution is cost-effective as it is hosted by Phoenix that requires no use of internal resources by partners, officials said.

"OEMs would price [FailSafe] as a service to get recurring revenue stream and create customer stickiness," Chaudhuri said.

Additionally, she said that FailSafe gives "our PC OEM's like Acer, Lenovo, Dell and Toshiba the ability to create more value towards their devices out of the factory and not as after-market installations." And Chaudhuri said that their PC OEM's would use FailSafe as a differentiator from their competition.

"Differentiation [usually] comes at the chipset level and not the box level. Form factors haven't changed much and all [OEMs] have been struggling to come up with differentiation. PCs don't have brand loyalty," she noted.