After securing PCs, Symantec moves onto securing online transactions

Online business is booming and Symantec has found a good way to cash onto
their boom. It is working out on software packages, under the Norton brand,
which will provide safe transactions online various websites.

This is the first time that Norton has ventured into the uncharted territory
of transaction security and the end-product has yet to be named. However it will
be part of its 2006 product launch.

According to a survey done by IDate in 2004 the share of e-commerce retail
sales is rising steadily. Worldwide Business to Customer sales in 2003 was
estimated at close to 90 billion euros, excluding travel and public transport
sales. Close to half of these sales took place in the United States, compared to
32% in Europe and 17% in the Asia-Pacific zone. "Growth will pick up in
2005-2006, driven by the rise in the number of broadband connections in use, and
in the value of the average shopping basket. Online spending will total close to
420 billion euro in 2009, which represents an annual growth rate of 29%,"
the study states.

Said Jocelyn Chung, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Consumer and Small
Business Marketing, Symantec, "We are targeting the transaction behavior
itself with this new product line. A lot of details have to be worked out on how
it will be marketed and sold, but we hope to have it out sometime next
year."

Symantec will tie up with financial institutions, online sales portals and
other companies that offer e-commerce through their websites and will deploy its
privacy products on their backend systems. This will ensure that critical
information like user identity; password, credit card details etc are not
compromised. Besides securing online business, the product will also have anti-phishing
features so that users are not directed to fake URLs and asked to submit their
personal information there.

Norton's focus for 2005-06 is to simplify its products and make it more
relevant to users. As part of its efforts, it has integrated a feature known as
Norton Solution Center in the new range of products. This module gives a
snapshot overview of the PC, the files and programs within it. Like a dashboard
of a car, it will show which areas of the system are unsecured and need to be
protected on a continuous basis.

"According to our surveys, over 35% of users are not well protected not
because there are not good security products, but because they do not know which
one is right for them. So they compromise on their safety and simply ignore
certain emails, perceiving those to be malicious," said Jocelyn.

Norton has already put anti-spyware features in all its AV products. It is
also bringing in Norton Security Inspector (NIS) into its Internet Security
product line. "We have noticed that PCs are a maximum risk when they are
downloading programs. And users will not always change the level of their
security settings to allow that no malicious content comes in with the
programs," Jocelyn explained. The NIS will monitor the security settings
constantly and make sure that they are not set at minimal levels which will
compromise the machine's security.

The vendor has also redesigned its product packaging to make it more
user-friendly. It has come up with a user activity diagram which shows the 12
activities for which customers use its products. On each of its product pack,
this matrix is mentioned, and the particular activity for this the product has
been designed is highlighted. "So users can pick a pack, see the
highlighted activity and figure for themselves whether this suits their
requirements" Jocelyn stated.

VINITA BHATIA