GreenBorder is gone (Preannouncement)

[Bill Stout]

Just to let you guys know, GreenBorder is gone.

The company was sold to a large search company, and only support is available - kinda. The purchase pages have been taken down.

Long story short, GreenBorder was seeking round D funding late last year without success, searched for a buyer after the holidays, and closed a deal last Friday which started four months ago.

It was to be a 'Subsidiary of ...', but that didn't pan out. Six employees went to the buyer. I'll leave the name of the buyer to the final announcement.

See ya GreenBorder.

billbrietstout at yahoo dot com

[Rasheed187]

Well to be honest, there are other way better solutions, so no big deal, but I do wonder which company bought this app. Btw, good luck to you Bill and thanks for everything.

[Meriadoc]

Hi Bill,

That's unfortunate GreenBorder is gone, I know you guys were passionate in what you were doing.

Good luck in your future endeavors my friend.

[lucas1985]

Originally Posted by Meriadoc

That's unfortunate GreenBorder is gone

Perhaps the sandbox market is too crowded?

Originally Posted by Meriadoc

Good luck in your future endeavors my friend.

I wish you the best, too

[namdog]

good luck !

[Ilya Rabinovich]

Originally Posted by lucas1985

Perhaps the sandbox market is too crowded?

No, it is too small right now.

[walking paradox]

Perhaps the sandbox market is too crowded?

No, it is too small right now.

Perhaps the sandbox market is too crowded in terms of the number of sandbox products in the market relative to the overall demand for them. If you ask most people about sandboxes they'll think about what they used to play in as a kid. Point being that most computer users don't even know what a sandbox is, let alone use one.

[lucas1985]

Ilya,
Are you saying that there's enough market for all players?
That's great news indeed. DW, GW, SB and BF are superb products.

[walking paradox]

I think he might have meant that the overall size of the sandbox market is too small, as in there's room for the entire market to expand, not just for the number of sandbox products to expand. But I could be mistaken.

[Meriadoc]

Perhaps the sandbox market is too crowded?

GreenBorder have been around awhile with their enterprise product, this is a surprise, perhaps there are patents and a product isn't important to the owners - it'll be interesting to find out.

All the best Bill, your passion in it was very evident so hope it doesn't completely fade away altogether but resurface again sometime. Like the old saying goes, theres always room for one more.

[ErikAlbert]

ErikAlbert puts some flowers on GreenBorder's grave.

[Ilya Rabinovich]

I mean that software itself doesn't sells. PR sells. Everybody does know about need of AV, FW and AS because those niches are mighty PR'ed. Alsmost nodoby knows that signature-based protections are useless nowdays as nobody PR it. Same with HIPS solutions- there is no "big" company that would PR those solutions. Especially sandbox ones as they are a frontline of innovations in non-signatute protection field. Nobody knows-> nodoby buys-> nobody wants to read about it at PC Magazine ->no PR-> nobody knows. The circle is over.

[Joliet Jake]

Originally Posted by Ilya Rabinovich

I mean that software itself doesn't sells. PR sells. Everybody does know about need of AV, FW and AS because those niches are mighty PR'ed. Alsmost nodoby knows that signature-based protections are useless nowdays as nobody PR it. Same with HIPS solutions- there is no "big" company that would PR those solutions. Especially sandbox ones as they are a frontline of innovations in non-signatute protection field. Nobody knows-> nodoby buys-> nobody wants to read about it at PC Magazine ->no PR-> nobody knows. The circle is over.

Interesting points. This will be a big hurdle to overcome and it may take the combined might of all the big boy security companies to change this but only when they decide to follow the sandbox route. It will be self interest at the end of the day.

It's a shame that the media tend to only listen to the big boys POV when we have so many examples of the 'little' guy being years ahead of all these big corps.

I look at it from this prospective. Money/revenue with big companies can and will never replace raw god-given talent of sharp minds, and contrary to the way this world industries practice, efforts to push them aside and/ or avoid these talented individuals, they only really defeat themselves in spite of however big their revenue base advantages show them in the book numbers, bcause simply put, their money pool alone will never completely replace the pure talent gifted by those other many individuals/developers who are not as restricted or limited to suffer from the limitations that big industries face to compete for market share.

[ErikAlbert]

PR is nothing but brainwashing users to make them buy AV's and other scanners.
Scanners are big business and all non-blacklist softwares are a threat for these scanners, including recovery solutions.
As long a minority of users have other solutions than scanners, the threat for the scanner industry is neglectable.

[Perman]

Hi, folks: In order to have a product or especially a group of products to be successfully adopted by consumers, first and the foremost is to CREATE a NEED for those products' service, and to achieve that vendors ought to send out FEARS to general population; this will happen if you do not have our product's services. Just like early days, FW,AV,AT and AS vendors told us that if we do not have these products, our box will have very high possibility to get infected. Years have gone by, how many of us have ever got infected? even so, how often? Meantime, these vendors are laughing all the way to their banks. HIPS, sandbox vendors need to advocate that their products are actually superior to tranditional anti-malware apps, but to overtake these fat, established giants is an uphill battle. Best wishes for these saviors. Salute !

[Pedro]

Originally Posted by Bill@GreenBorder

Just to let you guys know, GreenBorder is gone.

The company was sold to a large search company, and only support is available - kinda. The purchase pages have been taken down.

Long story short, GreenBorder was seeking round D funding late last year without success, searched for a buyer after the holidays, and closed a deal last Friday which started four months ago.

It was to be a 'Subsidiary of ...', but that didn't pan out. Six employees went to the buyer. I'll leave the name of the buyer to the final announcement.

See ya GreenBorder.

billbrietstout at yahoo dot com

I'm sorry to hear that. Good luck for you guys. Life will smile again, be sure of that.

[Don Pelotas]

Originally Posted by ErikAlbert

PR is nothing but brainwashing users to make them buy AV's and other scanners.
Scanners are big business and all non-blacklist softwares are a threat for these scanners, including recovery solutions.
As long a minority of users have other solutions than scanners, the threat for the scanner industry is neglectable.

Absolute BS IMO, if there were any money in the non-blacklist app's you seem to think is the answer to the future of security, the same big business AV companies would steal that market too from the one man bands of the present "non-blacklist" world.

The day when a sandbox/HIPS/NIPS/TIPS/PIPS (whatever they are called ) type of app's are sellable to the average user is the day those big business companies will come in and takeover the biggest chunk of that market, either by purchasing promissing existing programs or hire those that has shown to be able to do it before.

For the record: I use several of these type of app's, i just don't think they are even close to be an endall solution to the problems we have in todays environment, they are a layer just like all other.

Sorry to hear about Greenborder btw.

[muf]

Originally Posted by Don Pelotas

Absolute BS IMO, if there were any money in the non-blacklist app's you seem to think is the answer to the future of security, the same big business AV companies would steal that market too from the one man bands of the present "non-blacklist" world.

The day when a sandbox/HIPS/NIPS/TIPS/PIPS (whatever they are called ) type of app's are sellable to the average user is the day those big business companies will come in and takeover the biggest chunk of that market, either by purchasing promissing existing programs or hire those that has shown to be able to do it before.

For the record: I use several of these type of app's, i just don't think they are even close to be an endall solution to the problems we have in todays environment, they are a layer just like all other.

Sorry to hear about Greenborder btw.

Totally agree with you there Don. None Blacklist apps are not ready for mainstream. I'd say 99% of the worlds internet users wouldn't know how to use one properly and either by accident, lack of interest or the ambition to review what each alert means would mean they will end up infected. Blacklist apps are here for a long time to come. The only HIPS type app that i would say is even close is Prevx1 and even that can be misused to an end that would result in the user becoming infected. HIPS are just layers at the moment and one for only people who know what they are doing or give a damn. For everyone else, they should keep well clear. And strangely enough, they do!!!

muf

[lucas1985]

Originally Posted by Ilya Rabinovich

I mean that software itself doesn't sells. PR sells. Everybody does know about need of AV, FW and AS because those niches are mighty PR'ed. Alsmost nodoby knows that signature-based protections are useless nowdays as nobody PR it. Same with HIPS solutions- there is no "big" company that would PR those solutions. Especially sandbox ones as they are a frontline of innovations in non-signatute protection field. Nobody knows-> nodoby buys-> nobody wants to read about it at PC Magazine ->no PR-> nobody knows. The circle is over.

Understood
Be sure that the community at Wilders will preach for non-signature security apps.

[bellgamin]

I'm sorry to hear about GreenBorder's demise. I do hope the acquiring organization has bigger & better things in mind.

As for saying that non-blacklist security apps in general, & HIPS in particular, are "just another layer" -- why are there so few folks who make such statements? I reckon it's for pretty much the same reason that there are so few bad drivers on the roads in Rome -- namely, most of the bad drivers have already been slain.

[Ilya Rabinovich]

Well, in fact, each anti-malware solution is "just a layer". AV is a layer to defermine already known malware modules, FW is just a layer to control network traffic and ports, HIPS is just a layer to be protected from unknown malware (drive-by-load and so on). Each layer covers other's holes. There is no "endall" solution in this world, it is myth, created by PR managers- it is really hard to sell something if it is not a "silver bullet" solution. And people trust in it- until first serious infection...

[Huupi]

Originally Posted by Ilya Rabinovich

Well, in fact, each anti-malware solution is "just a layer". AV is a layer to defermine already known malware modules, FW is just a layer to control network traffic and ports, HIPS is just a layer to be protected from unknown malware (drive-by-load and so on). Each layer covers other's holes. There is no "endall" solution in this world, it is myth, created by PR managers- it is really hard to sell something if it is not a "silver bullet" solution. And people trust in it- until first serious infection...

Agree,why should you trust the AV vendors more than the virus creators,both be very creative and persistant to create their marketshare,its a ongoing battle with no end and no winner !

[besafe]

I do think that PR sells products. But I don't think that companies are holding back the PR on HIPS, Sandboxing and Virtualization applications etc. simply to sell signature based products. I truly think the average joe simply isn't ready for this type of product.

When these technologies are perfected to the point where monkies could run them, we will see the big companies pushing the technology. Of course, y then, the bad guys wil have figured a way around them...