Endpoint Protection 11 was designed to compete with McAfee's endpoint security software, thanks to improved integration of the various software components and a smaller footprint that consumes fewer system resources than previous versions. However, because version 11 must be installed and the previous version removed, other vendors have seized the opportunity: If a customer is going to pull a product off the desktop anyway, why not look at other options? Anti-malware vendor Sophos, for instance, announced in June that General Electric had chosen its Endpoint Security and Control 7.0 to run on up to 350,000 PCs and servers. What wasn't announced was that GE swapped out Symantec.
There's a strong undercurrent of discontent with the incumbent security vendors, strong enough that large customers are more open to products from what have been considered second-tier vendors, including Kaspersky Lab, Panda Security, and Sophos. "Everyone in the enterprise world is saying, 'I thought this was fixed,' but it isn't fixed," says Nick Selby, research director for the enterprise security practice of the 451 Group. "We are getting infected by things we've never been infected by before."
Big enterprises, Selby adds, can often get better customer service and faster support from smaller vendors, and even more "efficacious product."
A security executive at a publicly traded cosmetics company rattled off a litany of complaints against Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10.2, including difficulties keeping laptops updated when they were off the corporate network. With Sophos, he reports that 99% of his machines are up to date.
He also says the Symantec product's reporting was horrendous. "Simple things like how many machines are infected or how many viruses did we stop: Without Herculean effort, it was impossible to find that out," he says. Note that independent reviews of Endpoint Protection 11 have described significant improvements in management and reporting interfaces over previous versions.
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