RSSSymantec Ups Software Renewal Prices
By Ed Oswald | Published October 13, 2005, 1:25 PM
Without any public announcement, Symantec earlier this week raised prices on its renewal licenses for its software by as much as a third. The move could be an attempt to maximize profits one last time before Microsoft enters the security software space next year, analysts say.
The price of a renewal for Symantec's popular Norton AntiVirus and System Works products rose to $29.99 USD, a 20 percent increase. Upgrading Norton Personal Firewall now costs $19.99 USD and $39.99 USD for Norton Internet Security - both up 33 percent.
Renewal licenses allow users to continue updating the antivirus signatures, as well as receive product updates without having to buy a new boxed copy of the software.
Symantec released the "2006" versions of its products in September, but did not specify renewal costs at the time, which subsequently went into effect on Monday. The price hikes could add as much as $250 million to the company's bottom line in 2006, according to Merril Lynch.
In its defense, the security software maker notes that it has cut the retail price of the software itself by $10, and product updates are now part of the renewal price. Previously, software upgrades were sold separately from the virus pattern updates.
Also, Symantec is moving towards a subscription model, and this week's changes are reflective of that shift, according to company officials.
If Symantec thinks that people will be falling all over themselves to pony up the extra $$$ for their outdated solutions, they are clearly suffering from a severe case of MYDOOM2. By the time that Norton had figured out that a "browser helper object" could actually be harmful, Lojack for browsers was already invented. It's as if they are still trying to use Sean Connery in the latest James Bond film. At least they finally did realize that spyware really is a problem after all. I'm sorry Norton, but you should have figured that out about two "007"s ago.
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|D B D D H K P U K S P
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|A S S :)
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|A V G A V A S T
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|Symantec has ruined all the old Norton utilities.
Symantec products are a LIABILITY on your computer!
The Computer Rodent
.
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|Disgusting. And while I'm not fan of Microsoft I hope Symantec are taught a lesson.
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|Alright, I'm another one of "those people" who have been using Norton for a few years. I mean, why would I turn down a VERY good program that I can get for free from any retail store? However...I recently got a computer, but didn't want to get Norton because 2006 wasn't out yet. So I went and got One Care, and I'm now done with Norton. One Care isn't as advanced as Norton, but it's still a great, easy to use program that is about to wipe Norton off the face of the earth.
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|I assume you mean the OneCare beta, because One Care isn't fully released yet.
As much as I like Microsoft, their success is going to be dependent on how reliable Microsoft is at getting updates out FAST, and how often we hear about viruses getting around the scanning engine... i.e. the magic keyword-- "vulnerability".
I do agree that I am impressed with the software, thus far, and I do plan on having the software to use, but I'm not exactly rushing to toss out Symantec yet.
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|Sorry, yeah I meant OneCare Beta. I haven't given up on Norton completely. They are still very good programs, and actually a couple of other computers in my household are waiting for Norton 2006 to be on store-shelves for the right price, so I'll probably install it then on my computer, at least until OneCare goes live.
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|Like gosherm1, I too did the 'upgrade' year after year until through this past year.
However, after having to uninstall and re-install Antivirus one a near monthly basis I jumped ship.
I'm now using MS OneCare and while not as advanced as System Works, it all I "need."
So, Norton, Symantec - see ya.
PS. I've been using 'Norton' since the late 80s and was a dedicated soul to them until recently. Finally I woke up and decided that if they didn't care enough to fix their product, why should I keep buying it.
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|Typical: Business X quietly does something, News Organization Y shouts it from every rooftop :| Really though, no matter how much we cut down Symantec, we all know that in the long run they will end up with more profits in the end.
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|And here I thought Symantec died with Microsoft Bob. Oy.
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|Swan song
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|This will help the case when they sue Microsoft because they pushed them out of the business.
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|Now, why would anyone pay to renew a license when they can just go buy an upgrade from compusa or one of the office superstores that has 100% rebates? Personally, the last time that I purchased a copy of it for my parents computer (their choice, not mine) was when I built the thing the first time... free upgrades each year since.
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|Ease of use. For many people $30/year is easily chump change to ensure they are secure and hassle free. Not to mention when you install those newer versions you deal, with certain reboot and liveupdate hell.
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|Most home users don't care to reboot. They shutdown every night anyway.
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|I map the power button to hibernate for home users, tell them to use it, and use it often.
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|Why would you do that? It take less than 30 seconds to boot a clean computer. It will take just as long or longer to come back from hibernation. I would never tell anyone to use hibernation. For one major reason; most USB devices won't work when you use hibernation unless you unplug them and plug them back in. It's also safer to just shut it down and reboot. Hibernation has sucked from the very start. It's one of those things that MS has yet to fix.
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|I would NEVER let you touch my computers...
Hibernation = Irritating
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|I almost agree with you. I look at it this way:
Hibernation = Death
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|I with you buddy! I always let my notebook hibernate. When it's unplugged, it goes to sleep when I close the cover, but after 10 minutes of being asleep, it goes into hibernate. I open it and it's ready to go in 10 seconds. Which beats booting. Also, I can pick up where I left off, which of course you can't do if you reboot.
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|Hibernation is better for laptops, setting it to hibernate when I closed the lid was really nice when it was time to switch classes and it turns the whole computer off which means I won't damage anything while getting to the other class.
As for rebooting, I hate it when people leave their computer running for however many days/weeks/months/years since most of them think they deserve a medal if they keep windows running for several months. I even reboot my servers every morning because I hate it when the OS sits there untouched for a couple days. Pet peeve for shizzle :P
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|huh?
I've been using hibernate in XP for YEARS, and I have yet to yank a USB device and plug it back in.
Hibernation is GREAT when you have 100 things open with data in each of them and you need to take a 50 mile ride with your computer.
All the computers in my house hibernate, always have. :-)
There was a bug in hibernate before SP1, but SP1 fixed it. Computers that hibernated usually didn't come out of hibernation. It was a killer for me.
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|If they are bragging about uptime then they aren't patching. :-)
Rebooting servers daily though, just because?
The only time I've ever had to do that was when bad code was on one and it was quickly identified and fixed.
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|The versions that come with Retail computers or are bought off the shelves in stores really suck.
Only the corporate version is any good. It's a shame too because if people only had the corporate versions on their home computers they would probably never need anything else.
The corporate versions don't expire and they don't hog resources.
At home I use AVG. At work I run SAV 10 Corporate Edition.
Plus when you get a new PC you have only 90 days of free Norton Anti-Virus. What a crock of crap. Greed.
I hope Symantec goes out of Business.
Where did these people go to school? They need to lower the prices with the up and coming Microsoft OneCare stuff.
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|Avast!/Kerio! - Though kerio stopped getting worked on...but oh well.
Hey, I found an old Norton AV 2000 disc! Man that thing performed well. :D
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|Avast!
AVG
Zone Alarm
Sygate
Antivir
Nuff said
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|They cry about losing customers, now they up the price. I mean come on now, MS is about to release WOC and they up the price. I hope they crash and burn!
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|Norton established their name years ago so those who don't know any better make it their choice of av software and because it comes bundled with systems such as Dell and HP, those same people renew their license without giving consideration to another av vendor. Norton knows they have a stranglehold on the unwitting masses, thus the unethical initiative to jack up the renewal cost. Way to go Symantec!!
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|Price raise to compensate for the loss of the same percentage of customer base. This is a good thing actually. May be this will give a chance to their customer to try out other (and better) anti virus.
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|"Whine Whine Whine!"
"Bad Microsoft, taking our overblown profits for mediocre products away from us".
"Let's snivel and complain to various governments because our nice overpriced gravy train is going to be taken away from us and we can't provide real value to compete with!"
"Quick, we must gouge the user base one last time before Microsoft spoils our fun and provide less invasive and better integrated protection in the OS!"
"Whine Whine Whine!"
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|no wonder they have to no one really uses norton antivirus no more. except for the ones who get it bundled withther pc. like Dell of HP
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|Most people don't use those either.
It's the first thing I remove (with the restore CD) when I buy a new computer or laptop. (It quit being cost effective for me to build computers years ago).
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|Could you post the numbers you collected for the statement "most people"? Thanks.
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|Yeah! I'm one of those "people" who are using Norton. I am not running a Dell or HP. I chose to install Norton myself.
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|That explains your post then.
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|My parents got an Acer laptop recently that I recommended to them(AMD). It had all programs you might want on CD's, with easy to install shortcuts on the desktop. I never did get around to putting Norton, ZoneAlarm, Acrobat Reader, or anything else they recommended in there though, and somehow all those shortcuts ended up in the recycle bin. ;)
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|Sure, pulled them right out of my ... :-)
Regardless, the product is more trouble than it's worth in my opinion.
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|Hmm... getting a little nervous about declining profits are we Symantec?
Maybe if you weren't expecting court costs from your retarded frivolous complaint to the EU, you wouldn't have to raise prices...
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|I wish the article would have mentioned this. Good one.
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|symantec are getting greedy, i personally think that they should get there (2000) development team back to sort out 2006,
with 2 rules in mind:-
unified & efficient
the retail versions just get more and more worse, they have become so resource hungry, and not to mention the amount of files needed during installaion, why does these retail version have so many components and .dll and all of the rest, there are to many scanners in the retail versions for them to even be considered any more,
symantec need to go back to there basics and start again as they clearly have forgotton how to keep things small but effective...
come on you all have to agree the retail versions are to bloated and way to advance for there own good,
simplicity is a way of life (i think thats what einstein said, not sure now).
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