Panda Software, a European anti-virus and security company, has gone into a franchise agreement with Pin-Point, the IT solutions company. Pin-Point will become the South African representative for the Spanish company`s anti-virus software.
According to Brian Little, one of Pin-Point`s Unix business consultants and negotiator of the deal, Pin-Point will initiate an extensive advertising campaign to create brand awareness among the SA business and home user community as Panda Software is an unknown entity in the local anti-virus market. Brand awareness must also be created to enable the company to compete with existing overseas brands in the local anti-virus and security market, such as Symantec`s Norton SystemWorks package and McAfee`s Anti-Virus Toolkit.
By using an existing SA IT company, Panda Software stands to save money and will boost the image of Pin-Point.
Pin-Point will use Panda Anti-Virus 6.0 Platinum as entry-level software for companies as well as home users. Although the network version of the Platinum program will only be available at the end of the month, the single user version is already available for retail. The program has specific protection modules for all entry points of infection, including e-mail and Internet. Panda Anti-Virus 6.0 Platinum also has an Intelligence Update system that updates the program daily to safeguard against new viruses.
According to Panda Software, the Platinum program detects and removes almost 20 000 viruses, including encrypted, polymorphic, boot, file, macro (Word, Excel and Access), Java applets, ActiveX controls, malignant Web sites, e-mail, Internet and future unknown viruses. The Platinum program is also International Computer Security Association (ICSA) certified.
ICSA is one of the main membership IS organisations and aims to initiate certification to improve overall confidence in computing. ICSA believes the certification process will also provide better protection and improvement in security standards.
Share
