Barracuda Networks Survey Contrasts IT Security Professionals' Views of Open Source Software and Commercial Software

Business Wire, Oct 2, 2007

CAMPBELL, Calif. -- Barracuda Networks, Inc., the worldwide leader in email and Web security appliances, today announced the findings of a survey which revealed that IT security professionals have an almost equal preference for deploying open source software (53 percent) versus commercial software (47 percent) in their organizations for similar functionality. Barracuda Networks' poll, which gathered insights from 228 IT security professionals, also showed the top three relative advantages of open source software and of commercial software.

In the survey, 80 percent of respondents cited pricing as the top reason for adopting open source software over commercial software, while 57 percent selected access to source code and 41 percent chose community code review as the primary reasons for open source preference.

"Businesses must control costs for IT," said Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks. "The fact that open source software is now viewed on par with commercial software shows the gains it has made in becoming a viable element of business security solutions. For companies such as Barracuda Networks that utilize open source software as part of their solutions, it is vital to be guided by customer feedback."

In addition, the survey found that the top advantage for deploying commercial software over open source software was vendor professional services, at 65 percent, while 47 percent of respondents named ease of adoption in their organization, and 47 percent indicated automated updates.

Barracuda Networks continues to be a participating member of open source and free software communities. It shares modifications to GPL licensed code, mirrors open source projects, and donates funds, hardware, and other resources to fuel open source technology innovation and collaboration. Barracuda Networks contributes to a number of open source projects, including: the Apache Software Foundation, ClamAV, Im-sensors, Internet Systems Consortium, POPFile, SaneSecurity, SpamAssassin, Squid, SourceForge and SURBL. Barracuda Networks directly funds two open source projects: libmime streaming event MIME message parser in C, and OpenSSH Unix domain socket forwarding.

About Barracuda Networks, Inc.

Established in 2002, Barracuda Networks, Inc., is the worldwide leader in email and Web security appliances. Barracuda Networks also provides world-class IM protection, application server load balancing and message archiving appliances. More than 50,000 companies, including Coca-Cola, FedEx, Harvard University, IBM, L'Oreal, NASA and Europcar, are protecting their networks with Barracuda Networks solutions. Barracuda Networks' success is due to its ability to deliver easy to use, comprehensive solutions that solve the most serious issues facing customer networks without unnecessary add-ons, maintenance, lengthy installations or per user license fees. Barracuda Networks is privately held with its headquarters in Campbell, Calif. Barracuda Networks has offices in eight international locations and distributors in more than 80 countries worldwide. For more information, please visit www.barracuda.com.