BRITISH COMPANIES FACE FLEXIBLE WORKING CRISIS Companies need Swift, Cost Effective Solution to meet Burgeoning Demand for Remote Access

British companies are facing a crisis as demand for remote access -- a key enabler of flexible working -- is escalating dramatically in a year where Gartner predicts that IT headcount will grow 0%. The sharp rise in demand for remote working has been driven largely by the recent changes to the Employment Act which came into effect on April 6.

(PRWEB) July 24, 2003 -- British companies are facing a crisis as demand for remote access -- a key enabler of flexible working -- is escalating dramatically in a year where Gartner predicts that IT headcount will grow 0%. The sharp rise in demand for remote working has been driven largely by the recent changes to the Employment Act which came into effect on April 6, giving 3.7 million UK parents the statutory right to apply for flexible working, and their employers a legal obligation to take these requests seriously.

The Government plans to extend this legislation to include all working parents by 2006, and the Office of National Statistics predicts that one quarter of all UK employees will work from home by 2020. Consequently, British companies, often with reduced capacity in terms of budgets and staff, are finding themselves under increasing pressure to either acquire or scale up their remote access capabilities and are encountering significant problems in terms of cost, time limitations and IT manpower issues.

The remote access technologies currently used by the majority of UK companies-- dial-up" and virtual private networks (VPNs) -- have traditionally proven complex to deploy and manage, too expensive for enterprise wide deployment and lacking in the required levels of security. A new wave of technology -- secure socket layer virtual private networks (SSL VPN) -- has risen to meet the demands of the companies that need simpler, less expensive and more secure remote access for their workforce.

At the head of these is Aspelle, a British company that have developed an award winning solution, Aspelle Everywhere. Integrating easily into existing IT infrastructures, Aspelle Everywhere delivers completely secure access to corporate applications and data via a standard web browser, and is a cost effective solution for companies who need to rapidly increase accessibility without compromising security or manageability.

What Aspelle can offer is fully secure, remote access capabilities that meet the complex challenge of how to support and manage the growing numbers of all categories of flexible workers, be they employees working from home, sales executives on the road, employees in transit or those working at client sites," said Mark Turner, CEO of Aspelle.

Our product also allows organisations to utilise existing technology investments, as it is built around Microsoft Trusted Technologies, which are present in almost all enterprises today." Serving as a secure access layer between a companys existing infrastructure and the Internet, Aspelle Everywhere provides a single passageway for the delivery of applications to users.

This minimizes impact on infrastructure and maximizes a companys previous technology investments, including existing access solutions such as dial-up systems or traditional VPNs. Aspelle Everywhere is the only SSL VPN in the market capable of providing manageable, secure, flexible access to all corporate applications, including Web, Unix, Windows and legacy systems. Integrating easily into existing infrastructure, Aspelle Everywhere doesnt require client-side software, a dedicated device, system re-architecture, application re-engineering or significant hardware expenditure.

Aspelle Everywheres unique, centralized management capabilities encompass all users and applications, offering absolute control over user access and providing the highest granularity of security. Aspelle Everywhere also enables increasingly context sensitive access provisioning based on user, location, device and time. As a result, it can be used for comprehensive application auditing, reporting, monitoring and billing, allowing enterprises to continually evaluate and optimize their business processes.

No other solution on the market can compete with the scope of access Aspelle Everywhere delivers, ensuring that authorized users have access to the applications they need, whenever and wherever they need them. Aspelle Everywhere also features a unique, three-tier security model to ensure the most stringent levels of security. All corporate data is 128-bit encrypted, with authentication, authorization and access controlled separately.

Applications remain inside the enterprise at all times, and all information is transferred between the enterprise and users over ports 80 or 443. As a result, additional ports dont have to be exposed on the Internet-facing firewall.

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About Aspelle Ltd
Aspelle offers the industrys most comprehensive, flexible and manageable SSL VPN and has successfully deployed its award winning software for global enterprises like Cargill, Dresdner Bank, Deloitte & Touche, Avanade, and many others. The companys software platform, Aspelle Everywhere, is ideal for companies who want to offer users secure, clientless access to all corporate applications, without the limitations and expense associated with other access technologies. Offering a powerful three-tier security model and centralized management, as well as the markets most advanced reporting features, Aspelle Everywhere integrates seamlessly into existing infrastructure, delivering the highest possible impact on ROI.

For more information on Aspelle or Aspelle Everywhere, please visit www.aspelle.com.