Kerio Personal Firewall was scheduled for mothballs on December 31, 2005. Then Sunbelt Software stepped in to buy the solution from Kerio Technologies. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

A spokesperson for Sunbelt said that the company will continue the tradition of offering both free and paid versions of the popular firewall. The product will be temporarily re-branded as "Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall" and resellers of the product will be invited to become resellers for Sunbelt.

"We feel that Sunbelt is uniquely positioned to offer both best in class support and ongoing product development for Kerio Personal Firewall and its legion of loyal users," said Martin Viktora, CEO and CTO of Kerio Technologies, Inc. "We are pleased that this product has found such a deserving home."

Earlier this year Kerio had announced that it would discontinue the firewall product and refocus its energy on the development of its popular Kerio MailServer and Kerio WinRoute Firewall products.