PGP is upgrading three of its products to give security policymakers greater flexibility when working with its encryption technology.

With the upgraded NetShare server, users have the option to designate applications that should be encrypted. In the past, encryption could be set for specific folders, but the software upgrade lets users trigger encryption any time a specific application is used. Customers can limit this feature by designating groups of users, for example, to whom an application-encryption policy applies.

A key new feature in PGP's Desktop E-Mail software is the ability to set e-mail encryption policies that apply when the PGP Universal Policy Server cannot be reached. Administrators can configure the PGP client software to block outbound e-mail, send it in the clear or follow a local policy set on the user's machine. Without this feature, if the server is inaccessible, users cannot send e-mail.

PGP's Whole Disk Encryption now enables administrators to lock out users after a certain number of failed login attempts. The only way to unlock such machines is to use a special one-time recovery token for that machine or to use an administrator key.

In addition, whole disk encryption can now be applied to removable media such as thumb drives, so an employee can copy encrypted date to a thumb drive that another computer with the PGP disk encryption client can decrypt.

The company has extended the number of keyboard languages it supports from five to 38. It has also rearchitected how keyboard language is negotiated so it will be simpler to add more languages.

The new version of Whole Disk Encryption also supports encrypting the boot drives of Mac OS X machines. Previously it supported Macs for file and e-mail encryption but not for boot drive encryption.

Pricing for PGP Whole Disk Encryption starts at US$119 per seat for Windows or Mac; PGP Universal Server 2.9 starts at US$169 per seat; and PGP NetShare 9.9 starts at US$149 per seat.