Southwest picks V-ONE for remote communications

GERMANTOWN, Maryland -- V-ONE Corporation, a major provider of virtual private network (VPN) security products, conventional and wireless networks, has announced that Southwest Airlines has deployed V-ONE's SmartGate clients server software to secure communications for 35 of the airline's remote marketing offices.

With V-ONE's VPN technology, Southwest Airlines' off-site employees can take advantage of centrally located network resources via the Internet, and receive the same level of network security as employees in Southwest's Dallas headquarters.

"IT managers know that costs associated with installation, training and troubleshooting of a VPN can significantly increase the total cost of implementing a security solution," said Margaret Grayson, president and CEO of V-ONE. "The cost savings combined with SmartGate's rapid and simple end user deployment, were key factors in Southwest's selection of V-ONE."

Authenticating users

SmartGate, which V-ONE claims is one of the most innovative VPN products on the market today, was engineered to address the security needs of enterprises operating in business critical environments. SmartGate authenticates users, encrypts communications channels and provides flexible access controls for client-to-application security. V-ONE technology works on a broad range of clients, as well as wireless devices, including iPAQ, CE and Pocket PC devices, and Palm.

"We needed a straightforward, secure and economical way to enable our remote users to telecommute over the Internet," said Eric Jorgensen, Southwest's manager of the Intel OS Services & Solutions Team. "We looked at a number of site-to-site IPSec VPNs and determined that SmartGate was the one that met all our requirements. It ensures maximum security and fast broadband connectivity for our employees, and is easily installed and centrally managed, resulting in administrative cost savings."

V-ONE's lightweight client runs as a non-intrusive application on the end user's desktop or as a Java applet on a browser providing VPN connection services to the SmartGate server. V-ONE's patented On-Line Registration (OLR) system automates the distribution of authentication keys and access controls using a secure communications channel. The OLR system is designed for rapid software deployment to large numbers of users. User IDs can be automatically generated without administrative interaction. 

Cost control

Southwest Airlines is known in the airline industry for its successful cost control. Southwest has had 30 consecutive years of profitability -- a record for which no other U.S. airline comes close to matching. Southwest started in 1971 with three Boeing 737 aircraft, serving three Texas cities. Today, the company has more than 300 Boeing 737s and serves 58 cities. In Europe, the Southwest approach to cost control and efficiency can be seen with easyJet and Ryan Air.

Southwest tracks problems in its IT systems, including its successful Web site, with Remedy Corp.’s help-desk system. The help desk communicates with Southwest’s IT technicians through 250 Motorola pagers. Southwest’s paging system previously handled both, automated messages, transmitted when staffers entered a new trouble ticket into the help-desk system, and messages entered manually into the paging system. 

The volume of messages was causing reliability problems. To keep up with paging traffic, Southwest went looking for a wireless messaging system that could handle both automated and manual messages and, that was also compatible with the Remedy help-desk system.

Message system

Southwest selected theTelAlert Urgent Message System from Telamon Inc. of Oakland, Calif.. Southwest IT officials have said that TelAlert reduced revenue losses resulting from downtime in its Web booking system, as well as its main reservation system, effectively paying for the wireless messaging system within three months. Southwest also recorded a savings in its telephone charges, because the TelAlert system sends multiple messages through Southwest’s paging services, which include SkyTel and Arch Communications, during a single dial-up session.

Grayson was elected president and chief executive officer of V-ONE Corporation in November 2000. She had been senior vice president and CFO of V-ONE since July 1999, and a director since August 1999.

Before joining V-ONE Corporation, Grayson served as vice president of finance and administration and CFO for SPACEHAB, Inc., where she was head of the financing activities, including private placements of equity, the initial public offering, and debt placements, aggregating $150 million in new capital. 

She previously served as chief financial officer for CD Radio, Inc. in Washington DC, an early entrant in the satellite radio mobile communications market. In addition to establishing its financial controls and successfully completing its initial public offering. Grayson negotiated for CD Radios' spectrum allocation, competitor coordination, and government rule-making.

Grayson is on the board of directors of Ronbotics Corporation and the advisory board of Celsion Corporation.