CA, McAfee Set To Roll Out Updated Antivirus Offerings

CA's new eTrust Antivirus v7 features streamlined licensing. Instead of buying a license for each antivirus component for the server, desktop, gateway and PDAs, a customer pays for one license at a starting price of $35 per user.

"It's one price per user and gives you coverage to protect users on their desktop, the server, their e-mail and the gateway, and even down to the mobile device," said Ian Hameroff, eTrust security strategist at CA, Islandia, N.Y.

The license includes a year of signature updates and 24x7 technical support.

In addition, eTrust Antivirus v7 features dual virus-scanning engines to provide layered protection.

"CA is hitting the ground running with this new version,solid technology with a great value," said Michelle Drolet, CEO of Conqwest, a Holliston, Mass.-based security solution provider.

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7.0, meanwhile, has several new features designed to boost protection, conserve bandwidth and streamline administration, said Ryan McGee, director of product marketing at McAfee, based in Santa Clara, Calif.

A major feature is the software's ability to kill worms and viruses in memory, he said. Code Red and the recent SQL Slammer worm reside in memory without actually infecting a file.

The updated VirusScan also combines file server and desktop protection, which previously were separate products, to make it easier to buy and manage, McGee said. McAfee reduced the size of the product to 10 Mbytes, which requires less bandwidth for administrators to roll it out.

The software gives mobile workers flexibility in scheduling updates and directs them to the nearest server for updates, he said. Another feature boosts performance by allowing customers to omit low-risk files from the virus scan.

Steven Palange, president and CEO of TLIC Worldwide, a Boston-based solution provider, said the VirusScan improvements address customers' concerns about bandwidth utilization and performance issues.

"This is what our clients have been looking for in their antivirus," Palange said.

Pricing for VirusScan Enterprise 7.0 is $45 per desktop and includes McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator management tool.