Distribution Central has announced the appointment of Mark Hill to lead its ACT branch. “Distribution Central has grown significantly since its inception in 2004 and our ACT branch is an important part of ensuring that we continue to provide our unique channel services – professional services, pre-sales support, and custom-designed and built Software-as-a-Services solutions – direct to our Canberra-based channel partners,” said Nick Verykios, Managing Director of Distribution Central. Mark Hill was most recently Regional Manager ACT for Wilson Security, managing key accounts, the operations of the ACT branch and growing the business through new customer acquisition. He has also run his own businesses and experienced first-hand the business needs of end users.

Fortinet has announced the introduction of three new members to its FortiWeb Web application firewall product family – the FortiWeb-4000C, FortiWeb-3000C FSX and FortiWeb-400C. The new product line is designed to address the diverse needs of large enterprises, service providers and mid-sized organisations that must protect strategic Web applications from security breaches and data leakage.

F5 has announced that its BIG-IP® Edge Client™ is the industry’s first SSL VPN solution that provides comprehensive security and mobile access for all devices running Android 4.x (codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich). F5’s free, downloadable client enhances mobile user productivity by providing accelerated client access to corporate resources via a full SSL VPN connection.

Blue Coat has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an investor group led by San Francisco-based private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo, LLC, in a transaction valued at approximately $1.3 billion.  The Blue Coat Board of Directors has approved the agreement and resolved to recommend that the shareholders of Blue Coat adopt this agreement. Blue Coat will continue to operate with its focus on Web security and WAN optimization.

AccessData has been named a 2011 SC Innovator by SC Magazine, one of the nation’s most respected publications for IT security professionals. AccessData has now achieved the designation for the second consecutive year, thus attaining unique status for the company’s pioneering technology.

WatchGuard recently published its threat predictions for 2012, stating that Internet-users can expect an increasing number of APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats) as well as their more real-world instances during the coming year.

WatchGuard announced that it achieved a record-breaking 2011 fourth quarter for billings, profit and units shipped. In doing so, this quarter stands out as the top-grossing quarter ever earned in the company's history. Additionally, the company notes double-digit sequential billings growth in Q4 over Q3, double-digit year-over-year growth from Q4 2010, and double-digit billings growth for the full year of 2011 compared to 2010.