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| Posted by: Nikola Strahija on October 9, 2002 |
Antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. announced a new twist in the competitive
enterprise security software market: cash back for tardy virus updates. |
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The new program, called the Virus Response Service Level Agreement, guarantees premium support customers that for each infected file submitted for analysis, the company will issue a virus pattern file that can be used by Trend Micro software to scan for the virus within two hours of the submission. If it fails to do so, Trend Micro will pay a fine.
The fines will vary, depending on the customers level of premium support. For participants in Trend Micro Gold support program, the company will pay $1,000 for each late virus pattern. That penalty increases to $2,000 per incident for Platinum support customers and $3,000 for Diamond level support customers, according to Bob Hansmann, product manager at Cupertino, Calif.-based Trend Micro.
Trend Micro premium support customers won it be automatically entitled to receive payments under the new plan. Instead, those customers will be required to upgrade to the new support programs, according to Hansmann. Details of how the company will move its premium support customers into the new program haven not been completed.
Trend Micro couldn not immediately provide figures on the cost of their premium support packages.
The program is a refinement of a free virus submission service offered by Trend Micro and was created in response to requests from customers, according to Hansmann.
Under the new program, files submitted by customers will be scanned initially with Trend Micro own software against all known virus patterns. Assuming the files pass that scan, an engineer will check the suspected files for new viruses. It iss common for customers who have not kept their antivirus software up to date to submit files for inspection that are infected by viruses for which a pattern already exists, Hansmann said.
While the program sounds ambitious, Hansmann said it covers detection of new viruses, not their removal.
-You need to make a distinction between detection and cleaning. Creating a detection is a lot more straightforward than dealing with a cleaning, especially with worms that change [Windows] INI files and registry settings, drop viruses on your system, and so on-, Hansmann said.
-The real problem is not a new virus, but having a worldwide outbreak of Code Red 2 at the same time as all of our premium customers decide to submit a whole bunch of files-,Hansmann said.
In that case, according to Hansmann, Trend Micro would activate all of its worldwide research labs to handle the increased workload. In addition, the new program exempts Trend Micro from new viruses that target unpatched product source code, such as Code Red or the Melissa Word-macro virus.
Brian Burke, an analyst at IDC, said Trend Micro seems to be on sure footing in offering the money-back guarantee.
-They have statistics that show their service response time is fantastic-, Burke said. Based on the [statistics] I am seen, [Trend Micro] would not have been required to default on their agreement with any of the blended threat viruses in recent years -- Code Red or Nimda.
While companies such as Symantec Corp. and Network Associates Inc. concentrate on delivering integrated product suites, Trend Micro may be trying to distinguish itself by focusing on the basics: good virus detection and prompt service, Burke said.
-[Trend Micro service-level agreement program] is attractive when companies are considering who to go with. It is a value-added service. If, for some reason, [Trend Micro] can not get a signature to you, they will pay you money to help alleviate the cost of downtime- he said.
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