Nokia Internet Communications Inc has added Trend Micro Inc to its roster of companies that provide software for it to use in its range of internet traffic management appliances, representing Nokia's first foray into tackling viruses and malicious mobile code.

While the Nokia Message Protector SC6600 is designed to provide virus protection, the companies are pushing it as a broader-based device, which includes spam and other exploit filtering, because of its configurable policy engine.

MacDonald identified Symantec Corp as a primary competitor, although Symantec's appliances also combine firewall and IDS functionality. He said all that functionality sitting in one place "just isn't practical" the way most networks are configured.

That said, the companies are planning to add features including FTP, HTTP and instant messaging scanning to future versions of the device, MacDonald said. That move would arguably put the company up against the likes of Websense Inc and SurfControl Plc.

The value proposition of the device, which is updated with new threat definitions from Trend automatically, is to reduce deployment and maintenance time and costs. However, using the appliance for the non-virus features will be more time-consuming. Spam filters would have to be written manually (or bought from third parties), for example.

© Computerwire