Beyond FTP and e-mail attachments

If you want to get a file to someone in a hurry, you attach it to an e-mail message. If it's too big for e-mail, you probably use FTP, available in virtually every operating system. But, if you want to manage your file transfer process, you need to look elsewhere.

One source to consider is Proginet Corp. in Garden City, N.Y. It's been in the file transfer business since 1986. Its flagship software, Cyber Fusion Integration (a candidate for meaningless product name of the year) recently added a slick new feature in version 6.3, the CFI attachment manager. According to Arne Johnson, senior vice president of product management, it works as a plug-in to Outlook mail clients and lets senders track their attachments, to see who has received and opened the file. You can recall the attachment before anyone opens it, if you change your mind or update the content. If recipients are not Outlook users they get a url link to access the attachment, which you can, should you wish, rescind access. CFI lets you set policies about file transfer rights, such as day of the week, time of day, a person's level inside the organization and many others. Johnson says regulatory pressure, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is helping "an old technology become new," because companies don't want to get in trouble by end users sending any file they want anywhere they want via insecure methods like FTP and e-mail. As such, he concludes, "File transfer is undergoing a revolution." (And just when you thought it was one technology that had ceased causing any trouble.)

Proginet will release a version of CFI later this year for users of Notes and Blackberries. Pricing starts around $5,000.