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Symantec now has a small business addition of its Symantec Antivirus Corporate 10.0 software for $251.00.
This includes the software and 5 licenses (minimum) and the licenses are good for a year.
After that you can update your subscription for about $22.00 per license. In general this
comes out to the same price as individual Norton subscriptions and is much less problematic.
Many of our small business clients only have 2 or 3 computers at the office. They’ll
buy the 5-user edition and use the other licenses on their home computers or laptops.
The enterprise editions are basically double that price starting at a minimum of 10 licenses.
The only difference on the small business edition is that you have to download a license
file from Symantec.
Although Trendmicro, McAfee, AVG, Computer Associates and others are all putting out quality
antivirus and spyware server software, I’m recommending Symantec Antivirus 10.0.2* to
our clients. The first time I used Antivirus corporate (version 7.0 and 8.0) I was amazed at
how little systems resources the Symantec Antivirus Corporate client used compared to Symantec’s
Norton products and McAfee. I also like the fact that it runs in the background and hardly
interferes with the user at all. I’ve gone out on a lot of calls where the client
all of the sudden can’t access a webpage that they need because intrusion detection
in Norton Internet Security gave the client a pop-up asking them to allow or disallow
something, which they didn’t understand so they chose disallow, and now they can’t
access their banking database, etc. When SAC catches a virus or spyware it pops up an informational
message explaining that it quarantined the malware and repaired or deleted the file. The user just
clicks okay. I make sure that the router and windows firewall are configured correctly and that the
computers are clean and secure to begin with. This cuts out the need for all the redundant
protection that McAfee, AOL and Norton Internet Security run constantly in the background.
In general, most computers using these programs are slowed down by as much as 50%. I hardly
even notice any difference in speed when SAC is installed.
The client can run on its own or be managed by the antivirus corporate server. The server
software in 10.0 can now run on Windows XP if you are running your computers in a workgroup.
Previous editions could only be installed on a Windows server. The client runs in the background
and scans all new data and incoming and outgoing e-mails for viruses and spyware**. Updates
can be programmed to run on a schedule or at a time interval. Full-scans can also be set to
run at anytime. The server updates, also on a schedule from Symantec’s definition servers
and sends out the definitions directly to the client. The client can also go out on its own and
get virus definitions from Symantec’s servers if it can’t find the local antivirus
server. This may be the case if a laptop is frequently off-site.
Administratively, I can see all the quarantines from the server,
schedule scans or run manual scans and install clients remotely, all without
bothering the user.
Symantec’s a solid company and I’m impressed with their customer service
and their team of experts that obviously work had to be cutting edge in
intrusion detection and prevention technology. They’ve recently come out
with a series of
gateway firewalls that I haven’t seen in action yet, but I hope to get one in the lab soon for testing.
* I say 10.0.2 because there have been a lot of bugs in 10.0. 10.0.2 is the latest upgrade that can
be downloaded after you purchase 10.0. It seems typical of all large vendor software roll-outs.
They say they can’t really test the product until it gets out on the market. However, most of the
bugs are related to integration with Windows domains and Outlook. It seems like they should
have ironed these problems out before it went on the market. Our non-profit clients had a
little extra trouble with obtaining the upgrade –
read more here.
** 10.0 now has advanced real-time spyware protection. 8.0 and below do not have any spyware protection.
9.0’s spyware protection is rudimentary. Symantec isn’t supporting 7.6 and
below anymore, which means there are no virus definitions for 7.6. They say
they’ll stop supporting 8.0 in the spring.
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RELATED LINKS:
Non-Profits Now Able to upgrade to 10.0.2 if they purchase 10. from Techsoup
Witzend Write-up
Symantec Antivirus Corporate 10.0 Enterprise Edition
- Key Features and Reviews |
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| Some Do-It-Yourself Tips for maintaining, repairing and troubleshooting your computer. |
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Witzend Computing |
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