NETGEAR Launches First Sub-$500 Gigabit Firewall For Businesses

SAN JOSE, Calif. — April 26, 2010 — NETGEAR®, Inc. (NASDAQGM: NTGR), a worldwide provider of technologically innovative, branded networking solutions, today announced the ProSafe® Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall (SRX5308), the first business firewall to provide in excess of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) performance for under $500, which translates to only $0.50 per Mbps. As the speed of WAN connections rise, and users turn to virtualization and cloud computing services, businesses need line-rate security devices that meet corporate governance requirements but also fall within budgetary requirements. The flagship of the NETGEAR ProSafe VPN Firewall family, the SRX5308 delivers on these requirements.

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) firewall for Small- to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) and distributed enterprises that provides ultra-high-performance, multidimensional business-class security, the SRX5308 delivers up to 1 Gbps of firewall throughput — faster than all competing solutions from enterprise vendors in its price class. With four Gigabit WAN ports that provide session-based load balancing, it gives customers a secure, “no compromises” network that can support sophisticated multimedia and the higher throughput applications they need to grow their businesses.

“Finally! An affordable professional firewall with multi-WAN failover, IPsec and SSL VPN,” says Larry Strauch, IT manager for Floor Craft LLC, a leading floor-covering company based in Colorado Springs, Colo., since 1942. “The SRX5308 firewall comes with an intuitive administration interface, which we’ve come to expect from NETGEAR ProSafe products. With a line rate of up to 1 Gigabit per second, the SRX5308 is easily able to handle the throughput of our large data pipe —50 Mbps. This router impressed the entire IT department by doing so much, and doing it faster than other solutions we previously tested. The NETGEAR ProSafe SRX5308 has found a permanent home on our rack.”

Perfect for the most demanding business networks, the ProSafe Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall (SRX5308) features a hardware-accelerated data flow architecture that enables 1 Gbps LAN-to-WAN of stateful firewall throughput. Further, the SRX5308 affords remote users the ability to build VPN tunnels to the corporate office to access centralized data using the IP Security (IPsec) standard or software clientless Secure Socket Layers (SSL).

The SRX5308 firewall supports up to 125 IPsec VPN tunnels and 50 SSL VPN tunnels simultaneously, for enhanced protection from network security threats. IPsec VPN tunnels deliver secure site-to-site tunnels connecting multiple offices together, as well as legacy, client-based remote access. SSL VPN tunnels enable clientless, individual remote access to corporate data, anytime and anywhere — without needing to install a software client. In addition, the SSL VPNs support industry-strength encryption algorithms and features such as automatic cache cleanup after session termination to ensure protection and privacy of sensitive data.

Moreover, as web and email threats are a growing concern for businesses, the new SRX5308 complements NETGEAR's award-winning family of ProSecure® STM Content Security appliances (http://prosecure.netgear.com) to combine comprehensive network-level security and application-level malware screening, anti-spam, and URL/content filtering for businesses employing web and email applications.

“In years past, it was easy to assume that smaller businesses didn’t have the bandwidth or security requirements of larger organizations,” said Jon Crotty, research analyst for security products and services at IDC, the global provider of market intelligence. “We know now that neither of those situations is the case – SMBs are using more and more advanced applications that require significant bandwidth and require enterprise-class security to protect that network.”

The sophisticated SRX5308 VPN router is a high-performance, SNMP-manageable network solution furnishing multidimensional security, such as denial-of-service (DoS) attack protection, Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) to curb hacker threats, URL keyword filtering, SYSLOG support, configurable hardware DMZ port, e-mail reporting, logging and real-time alerts. Quality-of-Service (QoS), WAN traffic metering, and bandwidth profiling give network managers granular bandwidth management capabilities, while VLAN support enables separation of guest traffic from critical production servers. Four Gigabit LAN ports enable maximum internal data transfer speeds, while the four Gigabit WAN ports provide two modes of session-based load balancing as well as failover protection to ensure maximum throughput and reliable connectivity to the Internet.

As with all NETGEAR ProSafe products, the SRX5308 contains several ease-of-use features to simplify implementation: an Auto Detect function connects to a user’s ISP promptly; the web-based ProSafe Control Center graphical user interface (GUI) offers simple configuration screens; an Install Assistant to reduce setup time; and an IPsec VPN wizard automates IPsec VPN configuration and creates secure connections to multiple sites.

“As businesses increasingly rely on Internet bandwidth-intensive applications such as cloud computing, Web 2.0 and social media, and outsourced applications, they require a high-performance network that doesn’t leave them exposed or vulnerable,” said Jason Leung, NETGEAR senior product line manager for SMB Security. “With four Gigabit WAN ports, session-based load balancing and a multitude of configuration options, our SRX5308 ProSafe Firewall is able to achieve ultra-fast performance between networks.

He added, “The combination of the SRX5308 with our industry-leading ProSecure STM Content Security appliances is a great enabler for businesses looking to virtualize their IT infrastructure or deploy cloud services for their organizations. The two appliances work hand-in-hand to mitigate modern network-level and application-level security concerns that preclude these initiatives."

The NETGEAR ProSafe Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall (SRX5308) is compatible with Windows®, UNIX®, Macintosh®, and Linux® OS and comes with full 24/7 technical support. All NETGEAR ProSafe products, including the SRX5308, are backed by a lifetime warranty and optional ProSupport Maintenance Packages. The SRX5308 is available now from leading direct marketers, e-commerce sites, and value-added resellers at an estimated U.S. street price starting at $499. Photos and other product information can be found at http://www.netgear.com/Products/VPNandSSL/SSLVPNConcentrators/SRX5308.aspx.

About NETGEAR, Inc.
NETGEAR (NASDAQGM: NTGR) designs innovative, branded technology solutions that address the specific networking, storage, and security needs of Small- to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) and home users. The company offers an end-to-end networking product portfolio to enable users to share Internet access, peripherals, files, multimedia content, and applications among multiple computers and other Internet-enabled devices. Products are built on a variety of proven technologies such as wireless, Ethernet and powerline, with a focus on reliability and ease-of-use. NETGEAR products are sold in over 26,000 retail locations around the globe, and via approximately 39,000 value-added resellers. The company’s headquarters are in San Jose, Calif., with additional offices in 25 countries. More information is available at http://www.netgear.com or by calling (408) 907-8000. Connect with NETGEAR at http://twitter.com/NETGEAR and http://www.facebook.com/netgear. 

©2010 NETGEAR, Inc. NETGEAR, the NETGEAR logo, ProSafe and ProSecure are trademarks or registered trademarks of NETGEAR, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Information is subject to change without notice. All rights reserved. 

Note: Actual data throughput will vary from maximum signal rates stipulated. Network conditions and environmental factors, including volume of network traffic, building materials and construction, and network overhead, lower actual data throughput rate.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 for NETGEAR, Inc.:
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Specifically, statements concerning NETGEAR’s business, product availability timelines and the expected performance characteristics, specifications, reliability, specific uses, and market position of NETGEAR’s products and technology are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, the following: the actual price, performance and ease of use of NETGEAR’s products may not meet the price, performance and ease of use requirements of customers; product performance may be adversely affected by real world operating conditions; failure of products may under certain circumstances cause permanent loss of end user data; new viruses or Internet threats may develop that challenge the effectiveness of security features in NETGEAR’s products; the ability of NETGEAR to market and sell its products and technology; the impact and pricing of competing products; and the introduction of alternative technological solutions. Further information on potential risk factors that could affect NETGEAR and its business are detailed in the Company’s periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties listed in the section entitled "Part I - Item 1A. Risk Factors," pages 10 through 27, in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 1, 2010. NETGEAR undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

U.S. Media Contact: Lisa Hawes, Sterling Communications, (408) 884-5155, lhawes@sterlingpr.com
U.S. Sales Inquiries: (408) 907-8000, sales@netgear.com
U.S. Customer Inquiries: (888) NETGEAR