Westcon Group Adds Fortinet to its GSA Schedule, Providing Multi-Layer Security Solutions to Government Arena

TARRYTOWN, NY, September 23, 2004 - Westcon Group, Inc., a global specialty distributor of networking and communications technology products, announced today that it has added Fortinet to its lineup of vendors who offer products through its Comstor division's GSA schedule 70, the country's 17th largest by volume. Currently, up to 40% of all federal IT purchases are done via GSA schedules.

Westcon Group, which already provides a host of industry leading security products to the government market through the Comstor GSA schedule, has been proactively educating its solution providers about the increased threats and liabilities government networks face in an age of increased legislation and malicious viral attacks. Fortinet's line of ASIC-accelerated FortiGate antivirus firewalls provide complete content protection required to protect against today's sophisticated, blended threats and comply with various government security regulations.

Dave Ambrose, federal business manager of Westcon Group North America, commented: "We are pleased to provide Fortinet's solutions on our GSA schedule. These products are a perfect fit for the government market and provide an end-to-end security solution for any size agency. The comprehensive features of Fortinet's FortiGate antivirus firewall products, combined with the strength of Westcon's proactive government programs, make this a win-win for solution providers serving the federal, state and local markets."

Fortinet's high-performance systems integrate several security services such as antivirus, firewall, virtual private networking (VPN), intrusion detection/prevention, Web and email content filtering, and traffic shaping into a single, dedicated platform. Fortinet FortiGate Antivirus Firewalls either currently meet or are in the process of obtaining the following important government certifications: Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS): 140-2; Common Criteria: EAL 4 for firewall and EAL 4 for antivirus; and ICSA certification for firewall, virtual private networking (VPN), antivirus, and intrusion detection.

"Westcon Group has proven success in deploying secure networks in the federal, state and local government arenas and offers Fortinet partners an ideal resource for procuring our wide-ranging security platforms," said Adam Stein, Fortinet's vice president of marketing. "With network security threats increasing in sophistication, it is critical for government agencies to deploy comprehensive security that provides the highest levels of protection and integration without sacrificing network performance. FortiGate antivirus firewall systems deliver complete content protection required to increase network security within the military, public safety and civilian sectors."

Tim Jaeger, vice president of sales for Milestone Networks, an Englewood-CO-based solution provider, stated: "We are pleased that Fortinet has joined Westcon Group's GSA program. Network security is a very important component of the Government's IT infrastructure, and Fortinet provides one of the most innovative, cost effective and comprehensive solutions available. Westcon Group continues to provide us with valuable tools to expand our presence in the government market such as lead generation and government sales training."

Solution providers interested in learning more about Westcon Group's GSA program should contact David Ambrose at (703) 345-5195.

About Westcon Group
Westcon Group, Inc. is a global specialty distributor of networking and communications equipment for leading technology vendors, including Cisco Systems, Inc., Nortel Networks Corporation and Avaya, Inc. Through its Westcon, Comstor and Voda One divisions, Westcon Group sells products and services to resellers, systems integrators and service providers. Westcon Group has particular expertise in the convergence of voice, data and video applications and technologies, including voice-over Internet protocol, or VoIP, security for networking and communications systems, remote access, Internet and e-business, virtual private networks, videoconferencing and wireless connectivity. For more information, visit www.westcongroup.com.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet's award-winning FortiGate™ Series of ASIC-accelerated antivirus firewalls, winner of the 2003 Networking Industry Awards Firewall Product of the Year and the 2004 Security Product of the Year Award from Network Computing Magazine, are the new generation of real-time network protection systems. They detect and eliminate the most damaging, content-based threats from e-mail, Web and file transfer traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, inappropriate Web content and more in real time – without degrading network performance. FortiGate systems are the only security products that are quadruple-certified by the ICSA (antivirus, firewall, IPSec, NIDS), and deliver a full range of network-level and application-level services in integrated, easily managed platforms. Named to the Red Herring Top 100 Private Companies, Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.