VeriTest Announces Anti-Spam Benchmark Service Results
Provides Businesses Insight Into the Effectiveness of Industry-Leading Anti-Spam Solutions
Waltham, Mass. — April 19, 2005 — VeriTest, the testing division of Lionbridge (Nasdaq: LIOX), today announced the results from its first Anti-Spam Benchmark Service Study. VeriTest's Anti-Spam Benchmark measures the spam-blocking effectiveness of anti-spam products and services intended for small businesses and enterprise users.
More than seven products were tested in the first round of the Anti-Spam Benchmark, including Barracuda Networks, Finjan Software, MessageLabs, and SurfControl. The anti-spam solutions were measured on two separate metrics that VeriTest weighted according to their importance to email users. The first metric measures the percentage of spam that each solution blocks. The second metric measures how many legitimate messages the solution flags as spam, or "false positives."
During testing, each solution's product processed an average of over 13,000 email messages, of which approximately 70% were spam and 30% were legitimate. The average spam blocked during testing was greater than 97%. To view the results of the study, please go to www.veritest.com/services/anti-spam.
Spam costs US corporations $8.9 billion per year, according to a study by Ferris Research. The Can Spam Act put into place more than a year ago is not offering enough relief for end users. A New York Times article in January stated that unsolicited junk email is up 50-60% since the law went into effect in January 2004. Businesses and anti-spam vendors both turn to VeriTest for the testing expertise and credibility to provide an objective, sound test.
"As spam continues to cost business billions of dollars each year, choosing the right anti-spam vendor has become increasingly important. This test's methodology incorporated input from all the major anti-spam companies, trade publications and industry associations, making it the first truly objective anti-spam benchmark in the industry," said Jos White, president of MessageLabs. "This test enables businesses to purchase an anti-spam solution with more certainty about the service level they're going to receive, helping them avoid taking risks on solutions that only claim to have high performance without being able to back it up."
"Developing the methodology for the anti-spam service was a challenge because it necessitated simulating real-life conditions and replicating real-time anti-spam capabilities," said Katrina Teague, Vice President Marketing and Solutions, VeriTest. "The anti-spam rating will give businesses, both large and small, a real leg up in selecting the spam-blocking solution that will most increase the productivity of their email users."
The second cycle of testing for the VeriTest Anti-Spam Benchmark Service is currently underway.
About VeriTest Services from Lionbridge
VeriTest, the testing division of Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:LIOX), is the industry's most trusted brand for high-quality, cost-effective outsourced testing, competitive analysis and certification services. With datacenter-equipped labs in North America and Europe and Asia, VeriTest provides a range of testing services that enable clients to ensure quality, usability, interoperability and performance of products, applications, Web sites and systems. VeriTest also provides certification and competitive analysis services that give customers assurance that the products and systems they are buying meet strict, industry-defined standards for quality and deliver measurable performance against industry standards and competitive offerings. With VeriTest services from Lionbridge, customers have a single global outsourcing partner to support the entire lifecycle of their enterprise applications, from development to localization, to testing and maintenance.
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