Symantec Norton 2000 Protects Small Businesses and Consumers by Pinpointing Y2K Problems on Desktops, Laptops

Product addresses hardware, application, and data Y2K issues; includes LiveUpdate to keep system hardware and software current

Cupertino, Calif --November 9, 1998-- Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing, today announced Norton 2000 1.0, an effective Year 2000 solution that helps protect valuable desktop and laptop PCs. By addressing both hardware and software Y2K issues, Norton 2000 makes it easier for small businesses and consumers to effectively reduce the threat of downtime resulting from non-compliant components and applications.

Norton 2000 offers users a powerful tool that proactively guards the mission-critical data residing on their desktop and laptop computers. Norton 2000 scans data, applications, and hardware and alerts the user to non-compliance problems that may lead to financial losses, liability issues, and incompatibility with co-workers', customers', clients', or partners' systems.

"Symantec is concerned about the safety of data on the desktops and laptops of small businesses and consumers," said Enrique Salem, vice president of Symantec's Security and Assistance Business Unit. "We understand that these individuals depend heavily on smooth-functioning PCs and data to be effective. With Norton 2000, we are providing the most vigilant protection for those critical desktop and laptop systems."

One of the most critical issues consumers and small businesses face with the approach of the next millennium is how to monitor spreadsheets and databases that are continually changing. One serious issue involves dates that fall close to a "cusp" point. Excel version 4, 5 and 7 assume that year values from 00 to 19 represent 2000-2019 and year values from 20-99 represent 1920-1999. Excel 8 extends this cusp point to 29/30. As a result, dates in a spreadsheet with years close to these cusp points may be incorrectly interpreted. In addition, the cusp point will change across a simple software upgrade and cause erroneous processing of dates. All of these types of errors can have widespread implications for both small businesses and off-site employees of larger corporations.

To address those issues, Norton 2000 includes a data scanning component that not only discovers Y2K problems in these complex files, but also generates a customizable report detailing findings. Norton 2000 scans the following files: Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, Access, dBase, Clipper, FoxPro, and Paradox. For recent Excel spreadsheets, Norton 2000 color-codes and annotates the spreadsheet to highlight and explain Y2K issues in each affected cell. Competitors' products simply scan file extensions.

Norton 2000 also audits other popular software applications for year 2000 compliance and compares those applications against a database of known year 2000 problems. The application database is kept up-to-date using LiveUpdate, Symantec's powerful utility program that locates and helps install hardware drivers and software updates specific to the user's system. LiveUpdate gives consumers and small business owners easy and quick access to the most reliable information on compliant software through to the millennium.

In addition, Norton 2000 uses a boot floppy to test and fix system clocks and the BIOS, where possible, thereby preventing users from inadvertently destroying data and program configurations during testing. For added convenience, Norton 2000 also offers a Windows-based System Date Test.

Pricing and Availability
The estimated retail price for Norton 2000 1.0 is $49.95. The product is available now.

System Requirements
For Windows 95/NT, Norton 2000 1.0 requires an Intel 80486 or higher, 10MB hard drive space, and 16MB RAM.

About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing. Symantec products and solutions help make users productive and keep their computers safe and reliable anywhere and anytime. Symantec offers a broad range of solutions and is acclaimed as a leader in both customer satisfaction and product brand recognition. Symantec is traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC. More information on the company and its products can be obtained at www.symantec.com.

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