Symantec is readying a new security product designed to protect consumers as they do business online.
Symantec laid out how it will compete with Microsoft for consumers’ security business, but again would not promise that its by-subscription security service would be available this year.
The software, called Norton Confidential, will offer a shield against malicious software and phishing websites that try to steal sensitive data. Additionally, it will identify trustworthy websites and help users manage login names, passwords, credit card numbers and other information used in online transactions, a Symantec executive said in a statement.
"Norton Confidential is our entry into a new category that we are describing as the ‘transaction security’ category," Enrique Salem, the group president of consumer products at Symantec, said in a presentation at the company’s meeting for financial analysts here. "This is all about protecting interaction."
As part of a day-long briefing of financial analysts, Salem, detailed both stop-gap and long-term product plans to stay ahead of Microsoft, which this week entered the consumer security market with a $49.95 per year Windows Live OneCare service.
Symantec has been working on Norton Confidential under the code name "Symantec Voyager." The Cupertino, Calif., software maker plans to release it this fall along with 2007 editions of Norton Internet Security (NIS) and Norton AntiVirus (NAV). NIS, said Salem, currently accounts for more than half of Symantec’s consumer software sales. Typically, Symantec refreshes NIS and NAV in September or October each year.
The product includes technology from antiphishing specialist WholeSecurity, which Symantec acquired in September last year.
Using WholeSecurity technology, Norton Confidential will identify risky Web sites on the fly as people surf, Salem said. Another feature will authenticate Web sites, in part by taking advantage of upcoming high-assurance security certificates for Web sites, he said.
The final main aspect of Norton Confidential is management of confidential data. The software promises to warn the user when an online transaction is suspicious or when information such as a password or credit card number is being passed to a suspicious Web site.
In addition, authentication of trusted sites that will include support of high assurance digital certificates when they become available; the forthcoming security offering will protect against password-stealing Trojan horses and other keystroke-logging "crimeware," Salem said. "That is the latest type of threat. Somebody can watch for the moment where you are inputting your confidential information, capture it and then use it," he said.
This is the only product on the market that combines all these elements, said Salem. But it is only a short-term solution. "Confidential is a stop-gap — aimed at our installed base," he said.
Even so, Salem said that Symantec’s existing product line — in conjunction with Norton Confidential — can handle the competition from Microsoft. "I expect that they will [Microsoft] compete directly [against us], but we will stay ahead of them with Norton Internet Security 2007."
More Products
As for other products, Salem said that Symantec’s answer, once code named Genesis, but recently renamed "Norton 360," would go into beta testing next month, first in a limited, managed roll-out, then in a widespread format that would be open to the public. Norton 360 is expected to include some features from Norton Confidential.
Symantec will decide when to roll out Norton 360, Salem added, based on the feedback it receives both from customers and from partners. Last month, company chief executive John Thompson said that 360 might be pushed back to give the annual refreshes of Symantec’s current consumer line — Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus in particular — selling space.
The only commitment Symantec has made to a 360 timetable is to promise that it will be released before the end of the company’s fiscal year, which comes to a close March 31, 2007.
"The feedback we get will dictate our moves," Salem reiterated.
"We are currently targeting code availability in early Q4," said Salem, "but it is not about when the code is ready. It is about when the code is ready for the marketplace."
Norton 360 will include anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-phishing, and anti-keylogger protection, as well as a personal firewall, PC tune-up utilities, local and online backup, and Web site authentication tools.
Salem would not pin down a price for the service, but several times mentioned the $40-60 annual spread that Symantec’s research says families are willing to spend for a complete PC protection solution. Microsoft’s OneCare, which Salem slammed several times in his presentation as inadequate and incomplete, is priced at $49.95 per year for a 3-PC license.
Although 360 is the long-range solution to consumers’ security problems — "Every consumer should have 360 on their machine, that is the one product they need," Salem said in a Q&A — Symantec has to make money this year, so it is again updating its warhorses and introducing a new product.
Salem also ran off a list of revenue-generating initiatives that he said would pump up the consumer group’s bottom line, including multi-year licenses for product updates, automatic renewal of product updates, a customer-specific identifier dubbed "Norton ID," a drive to shift customers toward more self-service support, and a push to outsource more development offshore.
While Symantec may pitch Norton Confidential as a product in a category of its own, other companies sell similar protections. Microsoft, for example, offers phishing protection as part of its Web browser toolbar and has promised enhanced security in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7 browser. It is also working on a tool called InfoCard to secure transactions, and it offers Windows Defender at no cost to fight spyware and related pests.
With all of its new products and updates, Symantec is looking to rival newcomer Microsoft, which recently started shipping its Windows Live OneCare product.
Salem said: "We have got to run very hard and very fast, because we all know that Microsoft will continue to improve their products. But we will stay ahead."
He also promised Symantec would defend its security turf, and compete wherever necessary to stay in the top spot. "Anyplace people want to buy security, we will be there."