Symantec announces Norton Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition

SYDNEY --NSW - July 13, 1999 - Symantec, the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing, has announced the availability of Norton Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition for home and self-employed power users. Norton Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition builds on the success of Norton Ghost 5.1 Corporate Edition the worlds most widely used PC cloning utility.

The Personal Edition boasts the same robust and flexible technology developed for the Corporate Edition, and includes a powerful disk drive cloning and imaging utility that speeds up and simplifies PC system migration, hardware upgrades, hard disk backups and disaster recovery operations. Norton Ghost automates the process of cloning a PC to minimise or eliminate end user involvement.

Fast Facts With Norton Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition, users can: Restore disk images when a PC fails, returning it to its original configuration in minutes; Migrate data files, applications and system settings when replacing an old PC with a new one; Clone an entire hard disk to a new hard disk when upgrading hardware; Create compressed hard disk backup files; Clone all popular operating systems.

With the release of Norton Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition, home users can now have more control and more functionality using the same powerful software utility tools that are used and preferred by the majority of IT managers around the world, said John Donovan, General Manager, Symantec Australia and New Zealand. The addition of Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition to the Norton family of products supports Symantecs vision of making customers productive and keeping their computers safe and reliable.

Time- and cost-efficient technology solution
Ghost technology works by creating an exact image of a PCs hard drive, effectively taking a snapshot of all the files that make up the operating system, applications and configuration settings. This enables Norton Ghost to make complete backups of disks, even copying in-use system files that are missed by other backup utilities.

Following cloning, Ghost performs a check on the files to detect any corruption, and is capable of verifying that a replicated disk contains the same files as the original. Image files can also be password protected for additional security.

Depending on the needs of the user, image files can easily be saved to local or network drives, as well as removable storage devices such as JAZ drives, ZIP drives, CD-ROM or other removable media. Norton Ghost cleverly permits a disk or partition image to be split across multiple volumes or media, prompting the user to insert another disk (or other media), or permitting the selection of an alternate location. Norton Ghost images can also be saved to, and loaded from, SCSI tape systems, providing an ideal means for implementing a robust disaster recovery solution.

By using an advanced image compression system, Norton Ghost significantly reduces the amount of space required to store image files, compressing them by up to 70 per cent depending on the compression method selected as well as the contents of the partition or disk.

The Norton Ghost Corporate Edition is the market leader with over 70 per cent market share, is used by over half of the Fortune 500 corporations and was responsible for 3.5 million machines cloned in one-and-a-half years.

Pricing and availability
Norton Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition is available now at a suggested retail price of AUD$149.

System requirements
Norton Ghost 5.1 Personal Edition requires an industry-standard PC, DOS 5.0 or higher, 386 SX processor (486 or higher recommended), 4MB (8MB for NTFS) RAM (16 MB recommended) and a VGA monitor.

About Symantec
Symantec Corporation helps make computer users productive and keep their systems safe and reliable anywhere, anytime. The company is focused on addressing customer needs in three main application areas: the Norton product line of anti-virus and PC-assistance products; the pcAnywhere, WinFax and ACT! product lines that cater to remote user productivity; and the Cafe product lines in Internet development tools.

Founded in 1982, Symantec maintains corporate headquarters in Cupertino, California with regional offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC, Symantec is ranked in the top ten international software vendors and employs more than 2,300 people worldwide. Information on the company and its products can be obtained at the Symantec Asia-Pacific Press Centre.

All information contained in press release is accurate and valid at of the date of issue. All content is subject to change. For the latest information about Symantec Corporation and Symantec products, please contact: www.symantec.com.