Norton Internet Security, Antivirus and 360 Being Retired?

Just came across this blog post. They are apparently retiring NIS 2014, NAV 2014 and N360 in favor of a cloud based Norton Security, which will be available on 23rd Sept 2014.

Is this for real ??

Norton Community

Norton Community Japan

http://www.softwarevoucher.com/norton-2015-release-date/

 

Sadly yes although the release date is not set in stone.

https://community.norton.com/blogs/...nav-pcmac-nis-pcmac-n360-standardpremier-n360

 

Lesser decisions to make.. just one product. Simple!

 

i HATE this. all these companies going this way. imo it sucks.

 

I fully agree

 

Is this the same thing you are referring to?

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/norton-2015-beta.365802/

 

I like more simple product lines.

 

As long as they do their job as well - if not better - as the previous versions.

 

There is a reason everyone is doing this. It makes complete sense, it's easier to support, it makes marketing more efficient, and consumers aren't as confused. The money is in the enterprise solutions, so they can simply release one product (Symantec), and have a consumer and enterprise version, streamlining everything down.

 

Yep. I agree. And honestly, I think paid home AV solutions days may be numbered. There are so many solid free solutions available. In addition, I keep seeing more and more free offerings from paid companies. I think it will be more and more difficult for them to charge home users money. I find the incremental improvement in paid solutions over free is less and less.

 

Also those free versions are being used to leverage improved databases and detections in enterprise solutions. Case in point, Trend leveraging millions of consumer ASUS routers with the agreement they signed. Or Fortinet releasing a free client for consumers. I agree with your statement as a whole.

 

imo it sucks and i disagree.....i do not install free versions for clients unless they specifically ask for them and then i explain i do not support those. i will come out if you get infected but those are not covered in our "warranty" type service we offer everyone for free. i deal mainly with consumers and i make a decent living on it. imo i would much rather deal with a consumer than business' personally anyway. i also dislike how bloated many enterprise programs are compared to the consumer counterpart.

 

1000%

 

There are, of course, hidden reasons behind every such decision, including but not limited to financial trouble, layoffs and downsizing. Symantec has been in a little bit of a turbulence in recent times and thus I am not surprised at all to see this company take the easy way and have one product with one team maintaining it (= less overall workforce). Symantec has been cutting corners for years now and I am surprised this practice still continues, it might imply there is something about the company we are not quite seeing.

Is this what they finally decided to do when they were strapped of workforce and looking for ways to further reduce the memory usage?

Norton 360 and NIS catered to different user segments, they might alienate both with this move. The fact that this looks like a paid "upgrade" for existing users isn't helping either. I am not surprised by Symantec taking this direction or pulling such moves as I have in the past seen such decisions come apparently out of thin air from the company.

For a company that publicly declares its ineffectiveness to work in a traditional setting and then announces a "solution" in the form of a NEW cloud-based wunderkind, you have to think hard about just how much trust you can put into their efforts.

I am being extra harsh on this company but I think they deserve it and need to come clean with their customers. These are no longer the days of the IT boom, it's the era of automations and layoffs in an increasingly competitive and struggling economy. If it has affected them, it's their clients' right to know.

 

Here's further indication that this move was in fact financially motivated:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/07/symantec_sells_more_to_lift_profit/

OTOH, it is good to see Symantec finally exiting OEM deals. At least I won't have to see Norton bundled again with motherboards

The bottom line is, they charge more from you and they pay less = more profit to them

 

What's going on here with these false/misleading statements? The enterprise stuff is actually far less bloated than the consumer versions. You usually don't find toolbars, optimizers, cleaners, boot speeders, and other things in enterprise versions. How can you make the claim you find Enterprise versions more bloated when the exact opposite is true? Also since EPP is deployed (usually) using custom scripts, we designate exactly what we want deployed, and how. Have you actually ever seen an enterprise version of these antivirus products?

http://i60.tinypic.com/2licvih.png

Also, generally most decisions from corporations are because of money. No surprise there. Of course as I said, it's cheaper to trim down to 1 or 2 products, it makes sense from every angle as a business. Monetarily or otherwise.

 

sorry there you are correct i was typing quickly on my phone earlier. i meant to say i do however dislike how bloated the newer consumer stuff is getting compared to the endpoint stuff.

 

No matter what Symantec does, it's always wrong. More products: bloat. Less products: greed.

 

The deal with Symantec isn't really about bloat tbh, you should read between the lines. Lavasoft was once a company with a very shady reputation, their product is now slowly getting a lukewarm reception. Why is that?

Symantec has been trying to "restructure" since 2012 - cutting things here and there. Two years and they're still at it, with not much visible improvement or new paradigms coming in to the actual protection provided (let's assume it's good enough). Does this inspire confidence in anyone? Charging money for whatever they can (making PC Tools available to purchase despite marking it as obsolete product and then charging for upgrade, Norton Security upgrade cost), while laying off employees and cutting down on R&D are sure shot signs of a company not willing to put effort where it needs to and instead relying on marketing to perform the magic.

I'm not usually vocal about these things but it surprised me that Symantec is still having this management/leadership/cost crisis two years after they had "streamlined" themselves. There's something else at play here and I'd be very wary to have anything to do with them in the near future.

 

Norton pulling out of various tests ruffled my feathers. My money went to Kaspsersky this year, and will continue to do so unless Symantec gets their act together.

 

Agree. And I don't understand it really... as Norton did pretty well on many tests.

I was surprised to see how well Norton did in the exploit test.

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/secu...-your-security-software-block-exploit-attacks

They don't really even brag about that apparent product strength..

On one of my systems, I use the Symantec Endpoint client-only product. I've never been clear how effective it is compared with the Norton consumer products... but it runs smooth as silk. I dumped it twice, installing Bitdefender and then Kaspersky as those products score very well in testing. But both those products had issues on that system and I ended up reinstalling SEP 12.1 -- which I get free, so that's nice too.

 

Has anyone installed this beta yet?What is actually in this software?

 

I installed it briefly. It seems pretty much like previous versions of the internet security package, but the UI is white instead of black now. I may give it another looks when it comes out as final, but they likely will not win my business back from what I am using now. Too little too late.

 

It's more like the current Norton 360 than NIS. It's got the tune-up 'features' bundled into it now. Norton Security and Norton Security with Backup are almost identical, except for the backup of course.