Symantec offers monthly fees | Bangkok Post: tech

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Symantec, a US-based software security specialist famous for its Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security suites, has begun offering its services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for a monthly fee instead of selling traditional licences in order to serve smaller businesses that have limited capital.

The company provides security protection for websites, email and instant messaging.

Nigel Mendoca, the regional director for Asia and head of the Symantec.cloud business unit, said charging per licence is very expensive.

The new alternative payment model will help customers save on their initial investment, particularly hardware and software licences and maintenance costs.

The new service is targeted at SMEs that may find themselves constrained in terms of spending on IT security.

The fee model has already proven successful with large multinational corporations, particularly in the telecommunications, banking, retail, airline, hospitality and government segments.

Symantec has selected the IT distributor Value Systems to oversee the service in Thailand due to its strong network of IT resellers and system integrators that can provide packages of products and services.

Somsak Pejthaveeporndej, the president of Value Systems (Thailand), said his company will select 10 of its 4,500 partners to sell Symantec.cloud services as well as provide training and educate the public.

Cloud-based security is widely used in developed countries such as EU members and the US, where adoption rates for the model run anywhere from 35-50%.

Meanwhile, Thailand's adoption rate is less than 10%, but Symantec expects that will increase to 10-15% this year and 40% in the next two or three years.

Digital data security services are becoming more popular, as they help internet users protect their personal data amid the rapidly increasing number of users staying connected via different types of devices.

The also enable businesses to protect their internal corporate data.

In 2009, hacking into personal data caused as much as US$1 trillion in damage.