Proofpoint Enterprise Governance

Proofpoint, Inc., a security-as-a-service provider, is extending its information archiving and governance capabilities with the introduction of Proofpoint Enterprise Governance, an enterprise information governance solution that allows organizations to track, classify, apply policies and monitor unstructured information across the enterprise.

Enterprise Governance uses patented, Digital Thread technology to fingerprint documents and track their versions and destinations across disparate systems. This technology is available via the cloud and is expected to be an integrated component of Proofpoint's cloud-based platform and application suite.

"Today information is everywhere. It's not just in central repositories, but on laptops and desktops, cloud-based file sharing services, SharePoint and other collaboration systems," said Gary Steele, CEO of Proofpoint, Inc. "Effectively securing, retaining and discovering this proliferation of content is a tremendous challenge for virtually all enterprises today. With Proofpoint Enterprise Governance, enterprises can now fingerprint and track information across disparate systems, enabling proactive information governance for compliance, data retention and eDiscovery."

Enterprise Governance helps enterprises control the legal and financial risks and eDiscovery costs related to unstructured information by defining and enforcing enterprise information governance policies. It also helps to improve document policy compliance, and reduce retention costs by identifying and disposing of documents that are no longer needed.

Enterprise Governance adds:

• The ability to monitor and control the flow of information across all major data stores and communication channels - including enterprise email systems, file sharing systems, collaboration solutions such as Microsoft SharePoint; EMC Documentum; IBM Lotus Domino; cloud-based, file sharing services such as Dropbox, and end-user laptops and desktops
• Proactive document governance capabilities for compliance with retention policies and for eDiscovery, including legal holds, for all types of documents and messages
• Improved data protection for intellectual property
• Consistent, policy-based protection for data at rest, extending Proofpoint's reach from the enterprise gateway to the end-point, enabling document lifecycle data protection

Enterprise Governance is based on technology obtained through the acquisition of NextPage, Inc., provider of in-place information governance solutions to global enterprise customers. NextPage was one of five vendors named by Gartner, Inc. as a 2011 Cool Vendor in Content Management. Customers of NextPage's information governance solution can benefit from the added capabilities - such as integrated legal hold and archiving features - that Proofpoint can bring to their existing NextPage deployments.

"Proofpoint's sales channels and enterprise information archiving customer base will provide potential new customers to access our information governance solutions," said Darren Lee, vice president of governance at Proofpoint, formally CEO of NextPage "We expect that our current customers will benefit from increased R&D investment, the ongoing development of our governance solutions, and access to Proofpoint's global support, services and training organizations."

NextPage delivers its solutions to large, global professional services organizations, which complements Proofpoint's services to that vertical market. Additionally, NextPage is a Microsoft partner with a SharePoint integration, which strengthens Proofpoint's existing partnership with Microsoft.
 
NextPage employees have joined Proofpoint as part of the company's archiving and governance solutions team and bring deep technical expertise and market knowledge to Proofpoint in areas including data governance, big data management and user experience design.

Enterprise Governance is available.