McAfee, Inc. announced Email and Web Security Appliance 5.5, with several new features designed to protect SMB users while also lightening the load on a network, will become available to its partners later this quarter. Here’s a quick look at the move.

Version 5.5 includes appliance clustering to help share the task of scanning, URL filtering, content policy wizards, a simplified installation utility, and Artemis and TrustedSource database integration to help identify new network threats.

We’re intrigued. But rivals are quick to downplay McAfee’s move. David Oro, a spokesperson for Cisco, one of McAfee’s rivals in this market, says they’ve had this update’s main innovations for years. McAfee merely combined the previously-separate e-mail security and web security products into one box, he asserts. “All they’ve done here is put it in one appliance,” Oro says.

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