Corporate v desktop antivirus

I know that corporate and desktop antivirus software are designed for different environments, but do the programs differ in what they detect? For example, would Symantec Endpoint detect different threats to Norton Internet Security? Would Avira Small Business Suite detect different threats to Avira Premium? Do corporate versions update with exactly the same definitions as desktop versions? Would it be better to have a corporate antivirus on a desktop, or would it be totally pointless?

No other reason asking other than it would settle a debate between myself and a friend. I won't say what I think in case I'm wrong .

 

From a corporate point of view, most pc's are more restrictive than a home PC. Often a solid policy and software restriction based control is implemented, making the corporate version less vulnarable to attacks on the code itself.

The repair/quarantaine of a corporate is likely to be implemented from a remote maganement point of view, rather than a local admin. Also outbreak containment and small footprint is more important for a corporate version.

As our system administrator says "putting a heavy canon on a small jeep, is not a guarantee for enhanced gun/firing power" (something will be lost in translation).

So for a single PC, I would say no, a home version might even be better than a corporate one.

 

It can also depend on the AV itself. Implementations of NOD32 v.2.7 and lower were the same as the 'consumer' version. There have been some changes made by ESET between the business and consumer versions since, which are more tightly integrated with a centralized management system.

avast! uses essentially avast! Professional for their corporate version, but it is a specialized version with many of its features only adjustable by the sysadmin, and otherwise locked down in many ways to the end user. Most of the eye-candy is disabled, as well.

Symantec is similar, and so forth. In *most* respects, each are very similar to their consumer counterparts, and detection is essentially identical.

 

corporate versions have administration consoles and only include the needed funtionality. they doesnt come with any bloat such as data backup,registry cleaners etc etc.
they are normally lighter on resourses as well.
sometimes the corporate versions are at least one version behind.
for example kav for workstations is version 6 and home version is 2009 two versions ahead.
mainly because its easy for home users to change a few desktops but its takes alot longer to deploy new versions to a whole enterprise.

having said that nod32 and avg have the same version for home and corporate. only difference is remote administration and centralised update server on site.

the big guns such as mcafee and norton have lots of differentr versions. home versions come with alot of useless features which you cant always choose not to install. for example toolbars,registry cleaners etc.

in the case of vipre the home version and enterprise version is the same. since its the same you can even install it on a server OS. so if your a student (like me) who can legally get server 2003 and server 2008 for free from ms you can get a decent AV for cheap and install it on windows server.

 

Thanks for all of your replies - very interesting to hear from those who use and have used them. I have one or two 'friends' who say that because they have a corporate AV on their desktop that they are better protected. I wasn't so sure, although I can see why a corporate version might be stronger. I personally much preferred Symantec Endpoint Protection (without the firewall - couldn't get to grips with that) to Norton Internet Security - I found it easier to use and configure and it just felt solid when I tried it.

Not at all Kees1958 - makes perfect sense to me .

Cheers guys

 

Speaking of SEP11 (which I use), it's kind of odd that one of the modules- the HIPS portion- works fine in XP (and I suppose Vista) but can not be activated on Server 2008 even though SEP is for the Corporate Server environment.

(and agree with the comment regarding the Firewall. It's a pain to add what amounts to every need rule manually. I really got used to the preconfigured packages.)