Trend to lift anti-virus services

Security software vendor Trend Micro has outlined a managed services-based strategy for its anti-virus portfolio.

Chris Poulos, MD of Trend Micro in Australia and New Zealand, said the vendor was announcing an Australia-based managed anti-virus offering.

Historically, security software vendors such as Trend Micro had generated the pattern file and notified customers about virus infections - leaving the customers to get on with fixing the problem, he said.

However, Poulos said Trend Micro had asked 'about 1000' of its customers what more they wanted from their security vendors.

The company had found that many customers' first reaction to an infection was to shut their system down in a panic and call their security vendor. 'When there's an outbreak, our telephone lines are flooding, not with questions about the pattern file, but asking what do we do,' he said.

Poulos said Trend Micro would offer managed anti-virus services providing outbreak support and strategy to customers which had joined the $15,000 level of its anti-virus program. Trend Micro would add recurring revenue and be more tightly integrated into customers' businesses as a result, he said.

Clive Wainstein, product manager for Trend Micro in Australia, said the service would include an automated component to help customers - particularly SMBs - around the clock. 'They can do all that work ... but at two AM, they don't stand a chance,' Wainstein said. Particular attention would be paid to combating blended and complex threats, Poulos added.

'It's critical that an organisation has a strategy around the gateway in place, because 96 percent of all types of malware are coming through the gateway,' he said.

He said Trend Micro would help customers develop and deploy that strategy. 'Consulting is certainly an important aspect - I can't say it's everything because we need to have the processes and people following the processes - so we're focusing on making sure that we're assisting our customers and understanding the technology side of things but driving things around the fact that we're not just doing security,' Poulos said.