The UK fronted company's local operation is boasting a 212 percent leap in revenue to June 2001 -- its first six months of business - and reports its customer base has soared 146 percent. Furthermore, its local headcount has swelled from eight to 25 over the last six months, with the company looking to take on an additional five people by year's end as it capitalises on the -increasing pressure within corporations to manage email and Internet usage," the company's local MD Charles Heunemann, told ZDNet Australia.
-In this current financial year SurfControl Australia is forecasting to double our business in Australia and New Zealand," he added. Even with a successful UK parent and a very large US presence (only 25 percent of SurfControl's total revenue comes from outside the States), -I can confidently say our growth in Australia is more aggressive than in other markets," Heunemann said.
The costs associated with Internet misuse, such as cost of lost productivity and that of protecting organisations and employees from legal problems, is one big reason why Australian companies are taking up filtering software at the rate that they are, according to Heunemann.
He points to the NSW Compensation Court, which recently sacked an employee who had worked for the court for 16 years for Internet misuse. According to the NSW anti-discrimination board, it will cost them AU$50,000 to replace the staff member and an estimated AU$70,000 in training costs, Heunemann said.
Already with customers in Malaysia and Hong Kong, Heunemann plans to make Australia the hub for business coming from Asia-Pacific region.
The demand for Employee Internet Management (EIM) software in Asia Pacific is expected to climb at a rate of 68 percent CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) over the next four years and will represent 25 percent of the global market by 2005, according to IDC.
However, whilst Internet filtering software can bolster an organisation's bottom line it is often criticised as being rudimentary and inaccurate. Civil liberties advocate Greg Taylor, of Electronic Frontiers Australia, told ZDNet Australia in an previous interview that software of this kind generally use blacklists compiled by unknown (usually US-based) entities using unspecified criteria, or else they use keywords. -This is crude and error-prone, and EFA is not aware of any new developments that have improved the appalling track record of such software," Taylor said.
-Regrettably we are becoming a surveillance society. Every day we hear of new proposals to increase surveillance, with little evidence of the overall benefits to society...we need to question such developments rather than meekly accepting them."
However, SurfControl says it researches Web sites that organisations are unlikely to want their employees to be surfing in-house and categorises them into a URL database, which is updated and sent out customers on a daily basis.
"I am a very strong advocate of organisations engaging in a policy and education process with employees," he said, adding that there are signs of a maturing market and a move to a -reconciliation approach" rather than a -nail them" approach that reflects organisations' increasing awareness that employees are the most valuable asset they have.
Heunemann said SurfControl Australia's results -flew in the face" of the current IT downturn. -We plan to make filtering software as ubiquitous as firewalls in the future."
