Here's a story that caught my eye first thing this morning. I'm one of those who hasn't been terribly impressed with the iPhone from the beginning, but I've never owned and iPod or an Apple product. What I saw in the iPhone was yet another lifestyle device, but what seems a mediocre phone, with serious limitations. Innovative in the UI, and certainly worthy of praise, but not the industry reinventing device everyone touted. The iPhone was simply another incremental change.

One of the major drawbacks of the iPhone started hitting enterprise telecommuncations and IT shops immediately after its release - it's not at all enterprise or business friendly. It simply isn't a useful business tool To be fair, as big a fan as I am of Nokia's N-series devices, they tend to suffer the same failing. For those of us whose primary orientation is business solutions, lifestyle devices just aren't a good fit in general.

Astaro is doing something to change that for the iPhone. At least to start. Or try. They're pulling together some VPN connectivity solutions to allow iPhone's to connect. And while that sounds well and good, even that's a mixed bag. The iPhone solution is constrained by the iPhone itself. That means L2TP over IPSec and PPTP are the supportable options. One of those, PPTP, is so overhead intensive and dated that I frankly don't know anyone who uses it.

Astaro is attempting to overcome iPhone limitations, but even that is constrained by the iPhone itself. I'll be interested to see how this does, but I suspect minimal impact on the market as a whole.

Burlington, Mass., (December 11, 2007) – Astaro Corporation ( www.astaro.com ), a leader in delivering unified threat management (UTM) security appliances, today announced that iPhone users can now use two varieties of road warrior virtual private network (VPN) inherent in all Astaro Security Gateway appliances to safely and securely connect their iPhone to their home and business networks.

iPhone users can easily access email and internal sites protected behind any Astaro Security Gateway security appliance. Whether traveling offsite or working from the road, users will no longer have to open their laptop in order to access company or home network resources. Astaro’s VPN capabilities have allowed iPhone users to work as if they are inside their network, even when they are not.

Set up and configuration is easy requiring as little as five clicks to create VPN access on the Astaro side. The Astaro Security Gateway offers four different levels of road warrior VPN; SSL, IPSec, L2TP over IPSec, and PPTP. The Apple iPhone is compatible with two of these, (L2TP over IPSec and PPTP) offering users a choice in which VPN access to use.

Astaro’s product offering is available commercially as a software ISO, hardware appliance or virtual appliance and provides the flexibility to meet any deployment scenario. Astaro also offers a noncommercial, free, home user software license available for download on their website, www.astaro.com . The home user license uses the same software as the commercial license, includes all subscriptions, and offers protection to ten IP addresses.

“As an Apple iPhone user myself, we have made it extremely easy to access networks protected by Astaro Security Gateway” said Gert Hansen, Chief Security Architect and co-founder of Astaro. “It’s a great feeling to provide everyone with an Apple iPhone the ability to connect to their networks for free.” Hansen continued “Astaro’s VPN compatibility makes the iPhone more than just a cool new gadget to show off. It turns the iPhone into a real business tool, albeit a very stylish one.”

Astaro has created a configuration guide providing step-by-step instructions on how to configure Apple’s iPhone and Astaro Security Gateway VPN settings. This document as well as Astaro’s free home user license download is available at: www.astaro.com/iphone .

About Astaro
Astaro Corporation is headquartered in Burlington, Mass. and Karlsruhe, Germany. The Astaro Security Gateway, simplifying Email, Web & Network Security, has won numerous industry awards and is protecting over 30,000 networks in 60 countries. Astaro products are distributed by a worldwide network of more than 1,000 solution partners who offer local support and services. For more information, please visit www.astaro.com.

Technorati Tags: Astaro, iPhone, L2TP over IPSec, PPTP, unified communications