Symantec announced today that it will team up with leading resellers to launch an anti-virus transition service for corporate organisations.
Symantec Pathway Transition Services is aimed at companies, whose anti-virus vendors have disappeared as a result of market consolidation and who must now transition to a new anti-virus solution as a result.
In a white paper entitled "AntiVirus - Time to Review", the META Group research firm said: "The net result [of market consolidation] is that tens of thousands of European corporate anti-virus customers are going to have to replace their anti-virus solution because their current supplier is no longer in the market."
The white paper adds that companies should seize the opportunity to consider all the anti-virus solutions on the market and not simply gravitate towards using the vendor that has acquired the technology they currently have installed.
As a result of an alliance with IBM signed in 1998, Symantec transitioned more than 4,000 former IBM anti-virus corporate customers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, representing over two million seats to its anti-virus solution. Symantec is using this experience to launch the Pathway service and train technicians from the various Resellers in anti-virus transition techniques and tools, including anti-virus software de-installation technology.
To gain certification, each technician must undergo training at Symantec's technical training centre in Leiden, The Netherlands to enable them to perform a phased de-installation of existing anti-virus products and installation of Norton AntiVirus across entire networks.
The Symantec Pathway transition service comprises three phases designed to assess the complexity of the customer's network and a propose a time-tabled transition process:
Phase One: Orientation Phase
Preliminary telephone research conducted by a Symantec Transition Services consultant, resulting in a descriptive timeline for the migration planning and organising of the project.
Phase Two: Preparation Phase
Full systems audit together with the selected partner. Delivers a complete transition plan with schedules together with tailored training.
Phase Three: Implementation Phase
On-site migration performed by certified consultants with full responsibility of moving the entire environment over to the new solution - according to the agreed transition plan.
The service is structured to provide a set cost for small to medium companies with up to 100 seats. The set cost also enables larger companies to pilot the program before rolling it out across their network. The exact cost to transition a single site with 100 workstations, two file/application servers, two GroupWare servers, one firewall and one email gateway will be determined by the reseller and is estimated to be approximately R60 000.
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Symantec is a world leader in Internet security technology and technology solutions that help companies manage and support workforces that use laptop computers and other mobile devices. The company is a leading provider of software products for the consumer market and is rapidly growing its presence as a provider of solutions to enterprise organisations.
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