Sophos Surpasses Rivals in Q1

BOSTON -- Sophos, a world leader in IT security and control, today announced significant growth for its final quarter, ending March 31, 2007, led by the North American market. Sophos’s worldwide bookings increased 40 percent with growth in North America topping 70 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The company also experienced strong growth in both Europe and Asia Pacific.

The percentage of growth at Sophos, which is headquartered in Boston, Mass., and Oxford, UK, substantially exceeded that of Symantec and McAfee.

"We're seeing a considerable rise in competitive displacements, which are primarily customers switching from legacy security vendors Symantec or McAfee to Sophos. More than 2,000 enterprises switched to Sophos during the quarter from our competitors," said Steve Munford, CEO of Sophos. "Companies are finding that they don't have to live with the pain of their existing solutions and that there is an alternative that can deliver considerable benefits. Sophos is uniquely positioned to deliver a single client and integrated policies at desktops and gateways, fighting the threat and lowering management complexity and cost."

These results exclude the effect of the purchase of leading Network Access Control (NAC) vendor, Endforce Inc. in January, which is expected to contribute more flagship account wins in the current quarter. One example of Sophos's success at displacing other security vendors was the announcement last quarter that Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth largest in the U.S., had seamlessly accomplished the switch from McAfee for its 90,000 strong highly distributed network.

"NAC is a great driver of interest in our complete security and control platform of web, email and endpoint solutions," continued Munford. "We anticipate further major corporate defections from Symantec and McAfee as the market recognizes that there is a serious challenger to the legacy security vendors."

Sophos plc