SAMMAMISH, Wash., July 2002 - Mergic has announced the release of Mergic VPN 1.0, a virtual private network (VPN) client for Palm OS handhelds. The VPN client allows handheld users with Internet access to securely connect to a private network, such as their home or corporate LAN. This allows other applications that require network access, such as network HotSync and e-mail clients, to connect to the computers they need to access. Mergic VPN is the first VPN client for the Palm OS platform to support the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), which is supported by more servers than any other VPN protocol.

When Mergic VPN is started for the first time, a wizard walks the user through the connectivity set-up. Once the configuration is complete, Mergic VPN can work transparently through an Auto Connect feature that allows user-selected applications to automatically connect to and disconnect from the VPN server as needed without requiring the user to launch the VPN client.

To use the product, some way to get a TCP/IP connection is required. Supported connection types include IEEE 802.11b (also known as Wi-Fi) wireless LAN modules, wireline and wireless modems, smartphones, and handheld to mobile phone connections using Bluetooth, infrared or cable.

Mergic VPN has support for 40, 56 and 128-bit Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption (MPPE). It also supports the PAP, CHAP, MS-CHAPv1 and MS-CHAPv2 authentication protocols.

"The optimized encryption and authentication methods used by Mergic VPN's PPTP implementation have relatively low processor overhead. This allowed us to create a Palm OS VPN client that connects quickly and performs very well over all supported connection types," said Rob Seaman, Mergic's Founder.

PPTP server support is available as part of many platforms including most Cisco platforms, several of the Microsoft operating systems (Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows NT Workstation and Server), Linux and many other operating system and firewall/VPN servers.

Mergic VPN runs on handhelds with Palm OS 3.1 or greater and at least 150 KB of available storage.

A free 15-day evaluation version of the software can be downloaded at www.mergic.com.