Utimaco Software SafeGuard MailGateway v5.2

From this device, all certificates, as well as email security policy and email signing policy, can be managed. We found this product to be difficult to use.

We were provided with the installation disk from the vendor and we had to install it on one of our servers. The installation went fairly smoothly and setup questions were easy to understand.

However, once the device was installed and put into the network, administration was quite difficult. Before we could even log into the web console we had to change our web browser settings, and once logged in we found the web interface was confusing and complicated.

This product comes stripped down to bare bones and it is up to the administrator to configure it from scratch. This would not be too bad, but there are no wizards to simplify this task. Setup is comprised of searching through manuals and going step by step, an arduous process.

SafeGuard MailGateway exhibits average performance. Not only was it difficult to set up, but management was awkward as well. Policy configuration is complex and confusing and integration into the environment was difficult also. This product offers OpenPGP signing and S/MIME encryption, which is a step in the right direction.

Documentation for this product is in the form of two PDF guides. One is an installation guide and the other is an administration guide. The installation guide does a nice job of clearly laying out installation of the software along with a hardware compatibility list. After the installation, the administration guide picks up and is well-organised.

Utimaco offers a support plan at a cost of 20 percent of the product price. This support plan includes both online and phone support. Also available on the website is a small support area with FAQs and documentation.

With a price of US$7,800 for the server license, and user licenses starting at US$94 per user for 50 users before the hardware is purchased, we find this product to be a less than average value for the money. The combined cost of the product and the difficulty of management makes this product an imperfect investment.