Symantec Endpoint Protection - Always The Winner

Selling Symantec Endpoint Protection is very easy!!! There are lots of points to prove this statement and on my way to this article, I will definitely highlight few of the important points which makes SEP not only a Antivirus product but also as a complete solution.

We have a customer, who was very unsatisfied with his current antivirus product. He was using Kaspersky in his organization consisting of about 600 workstations. There were lots of issues that he was facing. Among the most common issue he was facing was that the Virus were not getting in case of many documents, exe and zip files due to which the network devices were getting slow. Denial of Service was another common issue and management of the server was becoming a very important concern.

The customer had no options but to look out for a change since these issues were really becoming a headache for the concerned peoples. After looking out for many options, he decided to consult two of his most trusted vendors and we were one of them. The other vendor looked at all his issues and suggested them to go for Mcafee Total Protection. We however suggested them Symantec Endpoint Protection 11. So the decision for the customer was very simple….Pls show the capabilities of the product and then give us a techno commercial proposal. So from a Kaspersky environment, the actual fight began for Symantec Endpoint Protection VS Mcafee Total Protection. So the other vendor started sending datasheets and gave presentation to the customer and to our surprise, was able to convince the customer to go for Mcafee TOPS. We also got our chance for the presentation and once our presentation was completed the customer was for the first time in a confused state of Mind. For him both products look good But then we really spoke on few of these points to get a upper hand and from here everything changed. Here are the few points that helped up really convince the customer that Symantec was a better player for Endpoint Protection.

1. Symantec has a very Good VB100 track record. VB (also known as Virus Bulletin) carries out independent comparative testing of anti-virus products. Virus Bulletin's tests are widely recognized within the industry. Their tests tend to focus on virus detection rates and scanning speed, as well as looking at how each product fares when scanning a set files that are known to be clean. For last 5 years Symantec has never failed this test and Mcafee has failed at least 5 times in this test.

2. Symantec has single agent architecture. This means that a single agent can provide Antivirus Protection, Antispyware and Malware protection, Firewall, NIPS, Device control, Application control and so the list continues and in case of upgrade, this single agent needs to be upgraded. Whereas in case of Mcafee, there are multiple softwares/agents to do these multiple protection and upgrade task is much complex than Symantec Endpoint Protection.

3. In case of Symantec, Network Access Control is also installed along with SEP installation and just needs to be enabled on the management server whenever the customer decided to go for Network Access Control

4. Symantec Offers Device control in the same installation, which helps to control usage of USB drives or other drives to protect Sensitive data from being stolen or leaked. In case of Mcafee, you need to go out for a additional product.

5. Once of the very important point that was related to the Customers network was that Symantec co provide them not only machine based policy but also user based policy which was not possible in Mcafee Total Protection

6. Symantec has a upper hand in protecting the client again Zero day vulnerability.

7. Symantec is the best in protecting the Customer network again any rootkit. A rootkit is a software or a tool, which is placed by a Intruder in a machine to gain Administrative Privilages in the End Users PC. Symantec Veritas VxMS (Veritas Mapping Service)is the best technology available in the market today for protection again such threats. VxMS can map data, compare it to the Windows file structure, and isolate any discovered mismatches. Symantec has integrated this technology in SEP making it the best software in the market today.

These points not only convinced the customer to change the weight in terms of Symantec but also helped us to get the first chance to show the Demo. So now the point became very simple. The customer will use this product for 20 systems for about 15 days. If he is satisfied with the performance, he will give a Purchase Order in favor of Symantec else, he will ask the other vendor to show the demo of the Mcafee product.

So our actual demo started and we sent a very experienced engineer to handle this case. The customer provided us a Intel Xeon server to load the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager. The installation was very smooth. We first updated SEP to the latest patch and then updated all the definitions. We then configured an agent package which included all protection and functions and pushed these to all 20 Endpoints which the customer needed to check. Only after pushing these agents we came to know why these 20 systems were selected by the customer. These systems were all infected and had really given the most trouble to the administrator. Also, these PC’s were running Windows XP with 512 MB of ram. All others PC’s were running on either Windows XP or Windows Vista with at least 1 GB of RAM.

So the first challenge was to remove the viruses from these PC’s. The task was not so difficult as the isolation of these PC’s were done earlier by the customer by putting them on a different VLAN. The complete system scan for these PC’s took some time but Symantec lived up to the expectation of cleaning the systems. Once all the systems were cleaned, we enforced a strict Firewall Policies, Netbios protection Policies, application and device control policies and also enable Proactive threat protection.

As usual, once the activity of these machines were restricted, the problem died out but the end-users started complaining since they were habitat to USB drives and complete access of the network. But then the Manager at the Customers place intervened and explained them about the Company Policies.

The Customer checked the systems for about 20 days. On the technical capability of the product, there were absolutely no complain but there were some demands for enabling some access, changing the policies etc which were pretty easy to be solved. The customer was amazed at the capability of the product and was very excited that the product didn’t utilize much CPU and memory even though all functions and protections were enabled.

The results were as expected, the customer was very happy with the product and the other Vendor didn’t get a chance to install Mcafee in the customers place. We got the PO for 600 clients.

The customer is now a VERY SATISFIED CUSTOMER. A week ago the customer had contacted us for enabling SNAC functionalities in some of the PC’s to evaluate the working of SNAC. We will definitely have a go for the same.

Finally, Symantec has enabled so much enhance functionalities in SEP that the sales person doesn’t really need to sell the product but just reach out the technical capabilities which I am sure other product will find difficulty in competing. Sales has become very easy with such product capabilities and functions. just my last say-SYMANTEC ROCKS!!!