Sophos Acquires DIALOGS to Provide the Industry's Most Complete Mobile Device Protection

BOSTON, MA and WIESBADEN, GERMANY--(Marketwire - Apr 3, 2012) - Complete security leader Sophos today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DIALOGS, a privately-held provider of mobile management solutions, headquartered in Germany. DIALOGS, one of Europe's leading mobile device management (MDM) providers with customers such as BMW AG, Daimler AG, Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp, brings twenty years of experience in mobile product development. This acquisition further solidifies Sophos' leadership position within enterprise mobile protection.

The increased prevalence of smartphones and tablets represents a major shift in the way people and businesses work and collaborate. IT staff at enterprises of all sizes are faced with new challenges and risks in handling and securing an array of corporate and personal devices. That, coupled with the ever-expanding usage of apps and the threat of device loss or theft, reinforces the importance of mobile data protection solutions.

Sophos allays IT worries and ensures that customers have complete protection everywhere and on any device, all without impacting business productivity. The company's award-winning solution -- Sophos Mobile Control -- is designed specifically for enterprises to simply and quickly secure, monitor and control mobile devices. As a key concern for mobile device users is having secure access to corporate data, the combination of Sophos' encryption and data protection capabilities and DIALOGS' SaaS-based and on-premises mobile management technology provides a unique value proposition to the market -- secure collaboration from everywhere.

"IT continues to see large numbers of mobile devices coming into the enterprise -- both corporate and employee-liable -- and is under intense pressure to bring these devices under control," said Chris Hazelton, research director, Mobile & Wireless, 451 Research. "Email was the initial pain point, but management of mobile apps is taking center stage. Now more than ever, IT needs to focus on app data traveling across these devices. The ability to provide a flexible SaaS MDM offering paired with mobile application management (MAM) will go a long way toward solving the mobility challenges faced by IT today."

Together with DIALOGS, Sophos strengthens its mobile footprint, providing customers with complete security for their mobile workforces. DIALOGS offers an MDM solution, smartMan, which is already at the core of Sophos Mobile Control and will form the basis for MDM and mobile management solutions that will be integrated into the Sophos UTM-based (Unified Threat Management) suite. Additionally, DIALOGS offers mobile communication services for fast and reliable mobile messaging and location-based services, which Sophos will continue to support.

"CISOs and CIOs have major concerns about upholding security policies and ensuring compliance for mobile devices without hindering employee productivity. And in this evolving market, with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) presenting further challenges to IT, our customers need the peace of mind that they can manage and secure all of their devices, irrespective of their users' device preferences," said Rainer Gawlick, CMO, Sophos. "This is only the beginning of Sophos' complete security offering for mobile devices and will be complemented by solutions for mobile security and mobile data encryption in the coming months. Joining forces with DIALOGS will allow Sophos to offer fully integrated solutions."

"We're excited to be joining a complete security leader with deep background in mobile security," said Frank Zimmermann, co-founder and managing director, DIALOGS. "Our complementary expertise will further strengthen the Sophos mobile development team, resulting in quicker time-to-market to deliver enterprises the industry's most comprehensive mobile security offerings."

About DIALOGS
DIALOGS, one of Europe's leading mobile data communication providers, enables the professional use of locating mobile devices via GSM and GPS as well as fast and reliable short message service (SMS) communication worldwide. DIALOGS' core competencies are mobile device management for smartphones and tablets, and remote access solutions for optimized and secure communication. DIALOGS solutions can be used with all major devices and operating systems, such as Apple iPhones and iPads, including the latest iOS5 release, Google Android phones and tablets, Symbian, Windows Mobile devices and RIM BlackBerry.

About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, mobile and network security solutions backed by SophosLabs -- a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.

Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.