Secure communications vendor FaceTime Communications has launched a major new addition to its portfolio of products, designed to enable firms to manage and secure their web and communications channels.

The Unified Secure Gateway (USG) is a new web gateway appliance, which can help IT administrators to manage public instant messaging, Skype and P2P applications that may have crept into the enteprise without their knowledge, as well as enterprise unified communications platforms such as Lotus Sametime and Office Communications Server.

"The product gives customers visibility to detect all types of [these communications] and allow organisations to apply policy restricting who is allowed to use these," explained FaceTime's European vice-president Nick Sears. " Typically 30 percent of bandwidth is non-web and non-email, it's real-time apps and P2P."

The product is designed to protect against inbound threats such as malware and adware, and block spam over web and real-time communications channels, as well as preventing outbound leakage of inappropriate or malicious content, he added.

It can also ease the compliance burden for IT, by logging and archiving all unified and public IM communications in an easily auditable way, explained Sears.

Graham Titterington of analyst firm Ovum said that although recording these communications is not a formal requirement for many firms, the one-box solution offered by FaceTime may be useful for controlling use of IM and other channels in the workplace.

"The [use of real-time comms] has significant implications for corporate security because management has lost control of what's going on," he added. " FaceTime's problem is not so much the competition but getting enterprises to believe it's an area worth investing in."