PC Security: Who are the
Players in the Antivirus Industry?
by Ainuddin Mohamad
A lot of discussion has centered on whether
Microsoft with come to own a dominant position in the
antivirus market by simply bundling its technologies with its
operating systems at no charge. This is a similar technique
applied in other markets such as word processing...
Everyone in the United
States has heard of the leading antivirus vendors Symantec,
Mcafee, Computer Associates, and Trend Micro. These companies
have market-leading presence in the United States. Microsoft,
as well, has plans become a key player in this market.
Microsoft acquired intellectual property and technology from
GeCad software in 2003, a company based in Bucharest,
Romania. They also acquired Pelican Software, which had a
behavior based security as well as Giant Company Software for
spyware and Sybari Software, which manages virus, spam, and
phishing filtering.
A lot of discussion has
centered on whether Microsoft with come to own a dominant
position in the antivirus market by simply bundling its
technologies with its operating systems at no charge. This is
a similar technique applied in other markets such as word
processing and Internet browsers.
Of course there are a
number of antivirus vendors who also play in this market.
There are many companies with great market presence in other
countries that are beginning to become more widely known.
These vendors include GriSoft out of the Czech Republic,
Sophos in the united Kingdom, Panda Software out of Spain,
Kaspersky in Russia, SoftWin in Romania, F-Secure in Finland,
Norman in Norway, Arcabit in Poland, VirusBuster out of
Hungary, and AhnLab in South Korea.
It is not clear where the
industry is heading and everyone in this market faces a
rapidly changing landscape. The amount of effort to find and
provide fixes for viruses is staggering. Malicious programs
are getting more complex and the number of them is
increasing. Many companies may find themselves without the
resources to match the efforts of those truly bent on creating
havoc. Some virus companies are getting of hundreds of new
samples a day! Moreover, the new viruses are getting "smarter"
in that they propagate themselves quickly and they often hide
themselves and are smart enough to move around in a system by
renaming themselves in an effort to make it hard to remove
them.
About the Author
Ainuddin Mohamad is the Webmaster of
http://www.BestWebsites.com.my which is a Directory of Best Websites. Since
July 2000
BestWebsites.com.my has featured thousands of best websites in many
categories of interest with descriptions/reviews given by leading publications
and webmasters.
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