McAfee controls rival's products

McAfee has introduced a cross-vendor management platform that allows IT managers to monitor and manage both its own, and its main rival Symantec's, desktop and server antivirus products.

The company's latest version of ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO), which allows updates to remote users, is scalable to 250,000 desktops from a single server. The tool includes cross-vendor antivirus management, detailed cross-vendor graphical reporting and rapid software deployment across the enterprise.

Eric Hemmendinger, an analyst at the Aberdeen Group, said that an effective virus prevention policy has been a "tough road to hoe" in large enterprises that have not consolidated on a single antivirus supplier.

"McAfee is solving a huge problem for IS administrators by enabling them to seamlessly manage policy for both McAfee and Symantec antivirus installations and keep the enterprise safe from the viral infestations that can bring an enterprise to its knees in hours," he said.

ePO 2.5 includes the capability to detect the occurrence of Symantec antivirus on the network while ensuring that the Symantec product is updated. According to McAfee, ePO also works well for two companies going through a merger where one company has standardised on McAfee and the other on Symantec.

The latest version, available for Windows NT and 2000, and requiring client agent software on Windows 95, 2000, NT or XP, also enables system alerts via email, pagers or other devices based on priority and severity.

Ryan McGee, group product marketing manager at McAfee, said that managing a comprehensive antivirus policy across the enterprise just got easier.

"The ability to manage and update Symantec desktop antivirus with ePO puts increased power and control at the IT administrator's fingers, updating a cross-vendor antivirus environment quickly and efficiently," he said.

McAfee currently has 1.2 million subscribers worldwide, 30 per cent of which are international, and an annual renewal rate of 80 per cent.