Given that bay is willing to pay $156M for New Oak, they must see some
huge value in VPN technology. I'm still hazy on the application,
however. I use Microsoft PPTP right now, which offers some encryption
and some security, but it's a pain to setup and use. It's nice when
it works, however. I use it over a cable modem modem. Nothing less
than T1 speeds end-to-end.
But will normal folks use this over modems? I understand the
technology (i.e. how a NAS can to PPTP or L2TP style tunneling from the
modem to something inside the corporate firewall) but I'm not sure I
get the application yet.
It's interesting to me that large companies seem to be willing to put
$5k routines in people's houses, in front of their cable modems in
order to guarantee security over the public data network (i.e. the
Internet). If so, there is gold in them there hills. Perhaps Bay
sees that gold. Seems like they should have a piece of customer
premise equipment also.
An interesting bet - will MIS people trust software running on W95 or
NT to do the encryption? My guess is that anal-retentive MIS/network
types won't go for it. They will want it done in a separate box which
only they control... Plus, what if I have two machines at home?
Copyright 1997 J Bradford Parker