Market shares of Symantec(Norton) and McAfee

In an article on computer security entitled "Go beyond the basics to be safer" in the Boston Globe (Dec. 31, 2004), it was stated that research from the well-known marketing firm IDC Corp. revealed that Symantec has 64% of the market, and McAfee 15%. No other figures were given. It also said that both products were judged roughly equal in quality, and that both got perfect antivirus scores from Virus Bulletin.

I don't know how they estimate market share here - number of software packages sold, or number of machines on which the software is installed or running, or what. I guess I am a little surprised that Symantec has 2/3 of the market even now, but then again, if you go into any retailer selling security soiftware (Staples, Office Max, Circuit City, Best Buy, Computerworld, and so on), if they carry only one brand, I suppose it will be Norton, the one brand everyone recognizes going back to the days of the Norton Utilities.

It looks like a Hertz and Avis, or Coke and Pepsi kind of a market in the short term anyway, with the rest distant also-rans, relegated to the status of obscure brands familiar only to the cognoscenti. That's a shame.