Symantec Chairman and CEO John Thompson has said he didn’t want to say Microsoft's decision last year to offer Windows Live OneCare, which combines firewall, antivirus and backup capabilities, for $49.95 per year for three PCs "was monopolistic, but it looked that way to some of us.” Last March Symantec released Norton 360, its competitor to Windows Live OneCare but for $79.99 for three PCs. The security giant believes it has the benefit of more features and Symantec's experience in security going for it. Using competitive pricing to try to get a leg up in a market where a company is weak is a common practice, and Symantec is no stranger to such pricing storms, Thompson said. Symantec plans to unveil its first software-as-a-service option this year, a backup service for SMBs called the Symantec Protection Network. That service will be rolled out in conjunction with the next version of its Backup Exec software. "We've reinvented ourselves in the past, and we'll probably reinvent ourselves if not one more time than at least two more times" to keep up with industry changes, said Thompson.
News source: InfoWorld
News source: InfoWorld
Which means: "We'll buy some more companies and turn their existing products into crap."
I like OneCare because it isn't intrusive. I don't get popups with giant red "X's" on them complete with syncronized alert tones.
Well, I'd suggest whatever they "reinvent" themselves into next time around, they put 'not sucking' at the top of their list of priorities. Lord knows it's been awhile since they've not put out a product that was complete ass.
Thats because Ghost was written by Binary Research, a New Zealand company they bought a while back. Nothing wrong with buying companies, its when they think they can stamp their company inside another, thats when things go up the crapper. Buy a company and realise the strength is in the way things are done - there fore, leave the damn thing alone
Actually Ghost has been replaced with a new product that Symantec bought (PowerQuest's Drive Image). I work in the IT field and I used to always recommend Ghost but not any more, I found something much better (Acronis True Image).
Its been a long time since I installed a Symantec product.. Norton Utilities used to be the daddy back in the day of Win95/98 and to be fair their corporate antivirus solution is (well, was) nice.. the home versions of firewall and all that stuff just fill me with dread whenever I see them installed on a PC.
I know.. lets bombard users with meaningless messages about messages being intercepted by the firewall, whilst simultaneously hogging ALL the spare resources on completely mysterious tasks. Ugh.
Kudos to MS, I guess. They can be just as evil, but Symantec definitely takes the distinction of "Evil Overlord Striving to Own Your Soul" category compared to the big MS.
Last edited by gotee12 on 28 Aug 2007 - 20:42
QFT. Maybe this will kick them into making better products, something actually worth buying!
For me, I'm actually excited about these new Microsoft products; I'll keep my eye on things, maybe in the future I'll purchase them.
As for Symantec, instead of blaming price pressure they need to ask themselves why customers leave - customers don't leave over price, they leave over the product quality dropping. If a product is superior and costs more than a competitor, they'll go for it.
One Care just so happens to be cheaper and better than Symantec.
Personally, I prefer Kaspersky.
they basically buy out competetion or good product and then sit their a$$es on top it for years and end up complaining MS for entering the market with one care service for less $. when will they realize they have to do something new to sell their product and not just complain.
Since 2002 each year's "new features" are just clearer descriptions of individual threat types (that the older products protected against anyway) with whatever buzzword seems most popular at the time.
Add to that the interface gets a little slower (with a few random pop up windows for good measure).
SAV = Antivirus - Bloatware + Failure when it comes to removing stuff
I honestly prefer Avast any day over any Symantec anti-virii product.
Symantec should consider spending less time blaming their problems on Microsoft and more time making a decent product.
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