Avast translates consumer success into better business security

Vince Steckler has a problem with the Czech Republic. No matter how successful his anti-virus firm Avast becomes, the authorities make it no easier for him to stay in their country. During V3.co.uk's recent visit to Prague to sit down with the firm, Steckler spent several hours beating away yet another interrogation by an over-zealous residency visa official.

So why did a man who was until a couple of years ago senior vice president of worldwide consumer sales at Symantec, and before that head of its Asia Pacific business, give it all up to live in the Czech Republic?

The answer lies in Avast's almost unstoppable growth since it launched a free version of its product in 2002. According to the firm, it's now the most popular in the world, used by more than 127 million people in over 30 languages.

This is an astonishing feat given that the firm spends no money on marketing, employs only around 150 people and has one office, in Prague. So why should businesses care about a firm that seems hell bent on dominating the ‘freemium' market?

"Our objective is to get as many free users as possible, but if they use it at home then hopefully they'll also bring it into their business where they'll pay for it," said Steckler.

"At the moment there's a lot of use of the free product inside small businesses but over time we'd expect more and more users to move to the [paid for] business products. We take a very soft approach to the misuse of our free product."

Around 20 to 30 per cent of Avast's paid users are small businesses, but they also benefit from the firm's massive presence in the consumer market, each customer endpoint providing vital threat intelligence which the firm uses to help protect all of its users.

This emphasis on a user community, coupled with a highly automated approach to processing and monitoring threats, means that Avast can keep an extremely lean team, barely reaching double digits, in its virus labs.

The knock-on effect of this, and the fact that no money is spent on sales and marketing and that the community - in the free product at least - provides primary support, means that more money is ploughed into R&D, claims Steckler.