Business security solutions specialist WatchGuard Technologies announced the launch of its XTM 5 Series network security appliances, aimed at shaking up the unified threat management (UTM) market with performance improvements and a starting price of $1,765. There’s also a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) security hook here, involving VPNs for Apple iOS and Google Android devices.

Specifically, the company said it has improved appliance packet filtering by nearly 40 percent, with gateway antivirus performance 190 percent faster, intrusion prevention (IPS) boosted 220 percent, and overall UTM performance improved by more than 150 percent.

Aimed at small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) with 50 to 500 employees, WatchGuard offers four models, the XTM 515, XTM 525, XTM 535 and the top-performance XTM 545, which boasts basic firewall throughput of 3.5 Gigabytes per second (Gbps).

Through the Application Control feature, businesses have access to granular control over Web 2.0 applications and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and allows IT departments to monitor how individual employees use such applications directly from the corporate firewall.

Businesses also have the option to add Gateway Anti-virus, WebBlocker, spamBlocker and Reputation Enabled Defense, WatchGuard’s context-aware, cloud-based security service, for a full-blown UTM solution.

In an effort to tap into the rising number of organizations offering bring your own device (BYOD) programs, the appliances also provide the ability to create highly secure virtual private network (VPN) tunnels for Apple’s iPad, iPhone and other iOS-based devices, as well as smartphones and tablets powered by Google Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or later.

A June report from research firm Frost & Sullivan projected the UTM market, which also includes products from Dell, through its acquisition of SonicWall, and Fortinet, would reach $3.75 billion in 2015 as businesses deploy integrated solutions in an environment of increasingly advanced attacks.