McAfee has completed its evolution from anti-virus
product supplier to security platform supplier with the release
last week of integrated product suites for enterprises of all
sizes.
The Total Protection Solutions suites are among the first to
incorporate anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and host intrusion
prevention into one application that gives the IT manager a single
console to view the health of the IT network and systems.
Rob Eatwell, channel regional director at McAfee, said the firm
wanted to create a single security infrastructure that was
integrated and scalable.
Chris Christiansen, vice-president of research at analyst firm
IDC, said, "The complexity of managing security technologies will
continue to drive the need for more integrated solutions. IT
security is increasingly moving away from a focus on a single type
of protection, such as anti-virus, toward a focus on broad
protection from a wide range of emerging threats to enterprise
security."
McAfee Total Protection for SMEs will be available as a managed
service from 25 April, with the advanced version of the software
priced at about £32 per user per year for a 51-node licence. The
basic service has anti-virus, anti-spyware and a desktop firewall,
while the advanced option offers anti-spam by rerouting SMTP
e-mails and cleaning them.
For small businesses, McAfee's network operations centre can run
and manage security operations such as updates and alerts, and give
the user status updates through a dashboard-style application.
The enterprise version of McAfee Total Protection adds intrusion
detection to the feature list, and is available from 17 April. It
costs about £39 per user per year for a perpetual licence covering
1,001 users, and one-year support. An Advanced version costs
slightly more and has network access control.