Case Study: Internet Publishing Group, Inc.

Challenge:
Internet Publishing Group, Inc. (IPG) provides information services to business customers via the Internet. The company has a roster of high-powered clients including investment banks, trading companies and professional firms who rely on IPG to deliver news and information quickly and accurately at all hours of the day. To provide this superior service most efficiently, it is necessary for the IPG staff to share sensitive documents between the company’s two offices in Pennsylvania and Texas. The staff is continually faxing and e-mailing copies of documents between the offices, jeopardizing the confidentiality of the material and creating confusion about which is the most current draft. IPG requires a secure location on the Internet where its staff can store, share and easily access documents whenever they require.

Solution:
Mangosoft’s Mangomind Internet File Sharing Service allows IPG staff to share sensitive information between offices with assurance that it is fully protected and cannot be accessed by unauthorized parties. Mangomind provides IPG with the same level of security as a virtual private network (VPN), however it is easier to install and use, requiring no special hardware or IT support. Mangomind also saves the IPG staff valuable time they once spent faxing and e-mailing various copies of the same document between their offices. Now they can store, update and share documents at one location on the Internet, no matter in which office they work.

Internet Publishing Group, Inc.
Internet Publishing Group (IPG) develops real-time news and research web sites for business professionals in a wide range of financial and professional services markets. In order to provide its unique service, staff in IPG’s offices in Pennsylvania and Texas must have the ability to share sensitive information with one another quickly, without fear that unauthorized parties will intercept it. Prior to installing a Mangomind drive, the IPG staff only had the option of faxing and e-mailing information to each other, clearly jeopardizing the sensitivity of documents and leading to confusion about which documents were most current.

To make its file sharing more secure, IPG investigated a host of possible solutions, including virtual private networks (VPN), however they were cumbersome and difficult to use. The company chose Mangomind because it had VPN-level security coupled with easy of use and installation. Like a virtual private network, Mangomind authenticates user connections and encrypts all data before transferring it to the server. It also provides additional security measures by keeping all data encrypted on the server, and allows users to easily create new shared file areas with unique access permissions for different user groups.

"Our number one concern was the security of our documents and Mangomind put our minds at ease," said Greg Baber, chief technology officer for Internet Publishing Group. "The documents we share through Mangomind are encrypted before they are transferred to the server and each user must have established permission before receiving access to files. In a business where the confidentiality of our documents is of utmost importance, this high level of security was the premier selling point for our Mangomind drive."

Baber said Mangomind also reduced the frustration the IPG staff experienced e-mailing and faxing documents back and forth between the different offices. With Mangomind, they can access and collaborate on one document from many locations, eliminating unnecessary duplication. Mangomind’s unique caching capability also allows the staff to work on files offline; Mangomind then automatically synchronizes the files once the user reconnects to the Internet. Better yet, Mangomind is Windows-based so it looks and works just like the staff’s local or network drive.

"I’ve worked with virtual private network technologies in the past and compared to them, setting up Mangomind was a breeze," said Baber. "We now have the ideal situation – our offices in Pennsylvania and Texas can work on sensitive documents together with the security that they are completely protected. Mangomind is so easy to use that some of us have also installed it on our laptops so we can access our files from anywhere in the world."

About Internet Publishing Group, Inc.
IPG sells information services to people using the business Internet. Their clients include investment banks, trading companies and professional firms who rely on their original news sites, proprietary databases and Web publishing services to get their work done. Based in Newtown, Pa., the company provides timely pricing data, targeted market news, expert commentary and research to industry professionals and companies. Internet Publishing Group is partly funded by PA Early Stage Partners, a Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE) affiliated private equity fund. www.ipgdirect.com