14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is nothing short of magic and, at the same time, a visionary. And it all debuted back in May 2006, when Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Security, Access and Solutions Division at Microsoft, announced plans to acquire Whale Communications. The Redmond company was looking for adjacent technologies to build a comprehensive offering around its secure access solution. With Windows Server and the Internet Security and Acceleration Server already in place, Microsoft simply needed Whale's SSL VPN and application-layer filtering capabilities in order to bring to the table a secure access platform. In mid 2006, the acquisition of Whale Communications was finalized and, in early 2007, Microsoft introduced the Intelligent Application Gateway.
"Launched in February 2007, Microsoft's Intelligent Application Gateway 2007 (IAG) allows administrators to manage IPSec and SSL VPN connections through a single appliance from a shared Microsoft Active Directory repository", revealed David Burt, Microsoft Product Manager, Communications Forefront security. Now, acquiring Whale Communications was an excellent move for Microsoft, analyst company Gartner offered proof in December 2007.
Microsoft ended up being placed among the visionaries of Magic Quadrant for SSL VPN, North America, 3Q07. Gartner underlined the fact that Microsoft swallowing Whale Communications was crucial to the company's position, as it managed to add gateway and strong endpoint security via IAG 2007. At the same time, Gartner warned that Microsoft was not yet there in terms of what it would be able to offer on the secure socket layer virtual private network market. This is due to the puzzle-like development of its solutions that have yet to fall into place in a unified architecture. At the same time, one of the aspects that Microsoft needs to place increases focus on is support for non-Windows platforms.
"Microsoft's merging of Internet Security and Acceleration Server and the former Whale SSL VPN created an excellent new product, the Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG), with optimizations for the Microsoft SharePoint Server. By attracting and retaining key personnel from Whale and Aventail, Microsoft built a better product than could have been created by incumbent Microsoft talent. Platforms and pricing are attractive for small to large enterprises and are sold with Forefront Security. IAG and related products are being handled aggressively in the Microsoft sales channels", Gartner added.