Proofpoint (News - Alert) has been experiencing a surge in demand for its products as hosted Exchange e-mail security and compliance customers are switching from McAfee (News - Alert) to Proofpoint at a rate of one every week.

According to customers, Proofpoint's spam and phishing detection, cloud deployment, advanced data loss prevention and compliance capabilities, and superior customer support are among the main reasons why they have chosen Proofpoint. The Proofpoint Enterprise Protection e-mail security solution detected 2,000 phishing and 600,000 spam messages respectively that slipped past McAfee Ironmail during the course of recent 30-day evaluations at a major university and retailer,. Also, Proofpoint Enterprise can be deployed in the Proofpoint cloud as a SaaS (News - Alert) solution or as on-premise appliances, virtual appliances.

“McAfee and other enterprise e-mail security and compliance providers can't keep up with the relentless pace of spam, phishing and other e-mail-borne threats," said David Knight, executive vice president of product management and marketing, Proofpoint. "When Proofpoint Enterprise is evaluated head-to-head against McAfee and other competitors, the superiority of our solution becomes instantly clear. We deliver superior protection from today's malicious e-mail attacks. We offer robust compliance functionality and easier deployment and management.”

Across sectors such as entertainment, government, retail, banking and financial services, education, energy, healthcare, and insurance, McAfee replacements taking place. Displacements of McAfee e-mail security solutions have added more than 250,000 e-mail inboxes to the millions already protected by Proofpoint Enterprise Protection and Proofpoint Enterprise Privacy solutions, since the first quarter of this year, the company stated in a press release.

Recently, the company was positioned in the Leaders quadrant of the 2011 “Magic Quadrant for Secure E-mail Gateways” by Gartner (News - Alert). Proofpoint serves the market by providing solutions optimized for ensuring e-mail security, encryption, data loss prevention and e-mail archiving. The solutions help organizations make e-mail safe, secure, compliant and easier to manage cost effectively. According to Gartner sources, the secure e-mail gateway market is a mature market.