TMWD Tumbleweed Communications Corp (MM)

The Message Center Provides Comprehensive Email Protection and a Secure Communications Environment for Wachovia's Commercial and Retail Customers Tumbleweed(R) Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:TMWD), a leading provider of email security, managed file transfer, and identity validation appliance and software products, announced today that Wachovia Corporation (NYSE:WB), one of the nation's largest diversified financial services companies, has implemented the Tumbleweed MailGate(R) email security suite to power the Wachovia Message Center by providing secure, encrypted email communications between Wachovia's internet customers, partners, and relationship managers. Wachovia, the 4th largest financial institution in the United States, exchanges more than 30,000 different types of email messages per day with commercial and retail customers, as well as other financial services partners. These messages often contain highly sensitive financial or personal identity information, making the security and privacy of these communications of paramount importance. And because customers and partners depend on this information to make important business and financial decisions, reliable delivery and tracking of these messages is critical. To address these communications needs, Wachovia created the Message Center, a secure and extensible communications platform powered by Tumbleweed email security products. The Message Center inspects outbound email messages, and encrypts and securely delivers any that contain sensitive or confidential information. "Today, email remains the primary way online for people to exchange sensitive information and facilitate resolution of customer service issues," said Ilieva Ageenko, SVP, Director of Emerging Applications at Wachovia. "Tumbleweed's secure messaging products are highly secure and flexible, ensuring the safety of sensitive customer data and financial information, while allowing us to leverage secure communications across multiple lines of businesses within our organization." The Message Center inspects outbound email messages, and encrypts and securely delivers any that contain sensitive or confidential information. Wachovia has chosen an implementation approach that can be used universally by any customer or partner with an email account and Web browser. It pulls customers to a secure (SSL) website to pick up their messages and documents, and can be branded for use by many different business units within Wachovia. The Message Center is tightly integrated into Wachovia's IT infrastructure to leverage (rather than re-create) systems such as single sign-on/access management, LDAP, and Wachovia's Subscription Alert system. While Wachovia is deploying this Message Center platform first for the Wholesale Banking division, they have architected this platform to support the secure messaging requirements of all of their business units. "Tumbleweed works with many organizations in the financial services industry, but we have found Wachovia to be one of the most innovative and forward-looking of our customers," said James P. Scullion, Tumbleweed CEO and Chairman. "It is particularly impressive that Wachovia has taken the communications challenges facing the banking industry today (phishing attacks, identity theft, data privacy breaches, etc.) and come up with a secure communications strategy that does the right thing for their customers and turns these issues into a competitive advantage for Wachovia. And they have done this in a way that makes it very easy for customers to use, and is transparent to employees within the bank -- this is quite a rare feat for a secure communications solution." Wachovia Wins Customer Innovation Award at Tumbleweed WorldSecure User Conference This past May, at Tumbleweed's annual worldwide user conference, Wachovia was announced as the winner of the WorldSecure Customer Innovation Award for its Message Center deployment. The WorldSecure Customer Innovation Award is designed to recognize and honor breakthrough applications of Tumbleweed products and technologies. SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT Tumbleweed cautions that forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on plans and expectations as of the date of the press release, and that a number of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from the guidance given at this time. These factors are described in the Safe Harbor statement below. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect Wachovia's continued use of Tumbleweed's products and services. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "potential," "continue," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed's Form 10-K filed March 16, 2006 and Form 10-Q filed May 10, 2006. Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release. Although this release may remain available on Tumbleweed's website or elsewhere, its continued availability does not indicate that Tumbleweed is reaffirming or confirming any of the information contained herein. About Tumbleweed Communications Corp. Tumbleweed provides security solutions for email protection, file transfers, and identity validation that allow organizations to safely conduct business over the Internet. Tumbleweed offers these solutions in three comprehensive product suites: MailGate, SecureTransport(TM) and Validation Authority(TM). MailGate provides protection against spam, viruses and attacks, and enables policy-based message filtering, encryption and routing. SecureTransport enables business to safely exchange large files and transactions without proprietary software. Validation Authority is the world-leading solution for determining the validity of digital certificates. Tumbleweed's enterprise and government customers include ABN Amro, Bank of America Securities, Catholic Healthcare West, JP Morgan Chase & Co., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), St. Luke's Episcopal Healthcare System, the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Defense, and all four branches of the US Armed Forces. Tumbleweed was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For additional information about Tumbleweed go to www.tumbleweed.com or call 650-216-2000. Tumbleweed, the Arrows logo, MailGate, SecureTransport, and Validation Authority are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Tumbleweed Communications Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property their respective owners.