Remote Access: What Can EnKoo Do For You?

When we last covered the remote-access company, enKoo, it was aiming its products at medium-sized business. Now however, enKoo’s turned its sights on small businesses with two new products, the Secure Remote Desktop and Secure Remote Server. EnKoo says both solutions bring enterprise-level performance and scalability to small businesses &#151 starting at less than $1,000.

According to Ajit Deora, enKoo’s CEO, the new products make remote access easy and affordable. “Both products are reasonably priced and can help small businesses reduce their overall cost of ownership,” he said. “Remote Desktop is a head-on replacement for GoToMyPC. If your company needs five or more licenses, our solution will save you money over GoToMyPC. You’ll save $898 a year on a five-seat license.”

Secure Remote Desktop
EnKoo designed the Remote Desktop for SMB owners that want to access the office PCs (and through them the company servers) from remote desktop PCs and notebooks. Employees can use any Web browser to access e-mail, files and applications from remote locations.

Deora says that the appliance is easier to maintain and manage than VPN products traditionally available to SMBs. “The average time it takes to install an enKoo appliance behind the network firewall is 30-to-45 minutes,” he said, adding that “although it’s a straightforward wizard-based installation, you do need some minimal networking experience.” He noted that resellers can handle the installation for you.

Enkoo offers the Remote Desktop in three versions so that companies can add more capacity as they grow.

&#8226 RD-1000&#151 A set-top box appliance that supports five, 10 or 25 concurrent users. Flat-fee price (in respective order): $995, $1,995 and $2,795.

&#8226 RD-2000&#151 A 1U rack appliance that supports 10 to 100 concurrent users. Flat-fee price ranges from $1,595 to $5,995.

&#8226 RD-3000 &#151 A set-top box appliance that supports up to 1000 concurrent users. Contact enKoo for specific pricing.

Secure Remote Server
The company designed the Remote Server product for people who need to directly access the server without first connecting to their work PC &#151 good for telecommuting employees who don’t have a PC at the main office but still need to access e-mail, network files and applications.

Features include file sharing, Web-based application support, client/server e-mail, Pop3, IMAP client, and Microsoft Outlook Exchange 2003 running over Port 80 to Exchange 2003.

Secure Remote Server supports as few as five concurrent users and scales up to 1000 concurrent users.

Pricing

• Five concurrent users: $995
• 10 concurrent users: $1,495
• 25 concurrent users: $1,995

Contact enKoo for specific pricing on larger numbers of licenses.

The Secure Remote Desktop (RD-1000) set-top box supports five, 10 or 25 concurrent users, and pricing starts at $995.

Security
Deora said that both remote Desktop and Remote Server use state-of-the-art to keep data protected from prying eyes. “We offer multiple security levels to ensure privacy and authentication,” he said. “First, the appliances use128-bit SSL encryption encrypt data over the Internet. Second, you must authenticate two different ways,” he said.

Deora explained that you need to first log in using a username and password. “Then,” he continued, “the appliance generates a random, one-time-use password and sends it to the device of your choosing &#151 cell phone, e-mail or PDA. You retrieve the password and plug it in to gain access. Once that password’s been used, it can’t be used again.”

Availability
You can buy the Secure Remote Desktop and Secure Remote Server through enKoo’s Web site or from any of its 200 U.S. resellers. Deora said the company’s adding 50 new resellers every month, and he estimated that the total should hit 800 to 1000 by year’s end. Contact enKoo for more information on resellers.

Lauren Simonds is the managing editor of SmallBusinessComputing.com