Akonix Warns Public Companies of Instant Messaging Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Risks; With November 15 SOX Deadline Looming, Many Companies Face Risks from Unknown and Unmanaged IM Use.

SAN DIEGO -- Akonix Systems, Inc., the premier provider of business solutions for secure, managed and integrated multi-network enterprise instant messaging (IM), is urging organizations to make sure they have included IM as part of their Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance preparation. As a resource for SOX compliance teams and project leaders, Akonix has published a guide to SOX and IM. This leverages Akonix's extensive experience helping hundreds of corporations comply with similar requirements faced by Financial Services and Energy firms. The guide is available at www.akonix.com/soxandIM. E[acute accent]According to Nemertes Research, as much as 74% of all corporate IM use was initiated by employees without the sanction of corporate IT. In addition, most organizations lack systems for security, control, archiving and compliance -- across both public IM users and enterprise IM systems. For public IM, traditional measures such as firewalls can be ineffective at blocking use, therefore public companies may risk the severe penalties of Sarbanes-Oxley unknowingly. With the first major SOX deadline of November 15 fast approaching, corporations would be well served by adding a review of IM to their compliance efforts for this regulatory act. E[acute accent]Under sections 404 (Management Assessment of Internal Controls) and 105(b), there is an emerging consensus that best practices for compliance means establishing processes for managing electronic communications and a system for archiving relevant messages, and that instant messages should be included in these efforts. E[acute accent]"Firms have deferred institutionalizing instant messaging long enough. Widespread rogue IM adoption and regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley make further delay a recipe for disaster," said Nate Root, senior analyst, TechRankings at Forrester Research. "Section 404 mandates annual review of firms' internal systems to ensure that financial data is accurately communicated and reported. To perform a credible audit, firms need to store pertinent communications securely -- including IMs." E[acute accent]"With November 15th just weeks away, it's crunch time for organizations to comply with these long anticipated Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. We have recently seen more and more customers including SOX compliance requirements in larger enterprise IM management projects, particularly in our recent record third-quarter," said Peter Shaw, CEO of Akonix Systems. E[acute accent]"There is no reason any company needs to accept the risk of SOX non-compliance due to unknown or uncontrolled IM communications," added Shaw. "Akonix lets enterprises quickly identify IM use outside of IT control, create and enforce company policies and implement whatever logging and records retention policies are recommended by their legal and accounting advisors. In the long-term, by ensuring all IM is controlled, monitored and secure, companies will benefit from this mandate by having stronger internal controls in place." E[acute accent]Akonix L7 Enterprise provides comprehensive logging, auditing, reporting and archiving features to comply with government, industry and internal compliance regulations for electronic communications. The management solution defines policies to prevent communications between specific groups or individuals, creates a compliance workflow to search, add comments, mark messages as "reviewed," email messages for escalation and monitor reviewer performance through an optional Web-based module. E[acute accent]For further information on the company, its IM management compliance solution, and to get your free copy of the SOX and IM whitepaper, please visit www.akonix.com/soxandIM.

E[acute accent]About Akonix

E[acute accent]Akonix is the leading provider of enterprise-class business solutions for leveraging the power of multi-network enterprise instant messaging. Akonix's award-winning products leverage patent-pending core technology, an advanced IM application development platform, and certified strategic partnerships to deliver multi-network management, security, integration and compliance capabilities across all major IM systems, including America Online(R) AIM(R) and ICQ(R), Microsoft MSN, Yahoo!(R) Messenger, Microsoft(R) Live Communications Server, Reuters Messaging, IBM/Lotus SameTime and Jabber. E[acute accent]More than 400 customers in Financial Services, Telecommunications, Energy, Technology, Healthcare and Entertainment depend on Akonix to manage, secure and enable IM for over 500,000 enterprise users. Akonix is the preferred IM management solution of some of the world's largest companies, including Cingular Wireless, Qualcomm, EMC and ING. E[acute accent]Akonix is widely recognized as the technology and market innovator with awards for its L7 Enterprise IM gateway from Windows & .NET Magazine, Network World, eWeek, SC Magazine, PC Magazine and UCSD Connect. Akonix is backed by leading venture capital firms Menlo Ventures, Mission Ventures, Palomar Ventures and Windward Ventures, who collectively manage over $3.5 billion in capital.