Norton Ghost 6.0 reduces time to recover, install and maintain PCs across Enterprise

Centralised Console for Remote Management, Post-Cloning Configuration Makes Norton Ghost 6.0 the Premier Tool for PC Recovery, Hardware Migration and PC Rollout

KUALA LUMPUR -- 14 October, 1999 - Symantec Corporation today announced Norton Ghost 6.0 Enterprise Edition, designed to dramatically reduce the time spent by system administrators when restoring, reconfiguring or cloning PCs across the enterprise. Norton Ghost 6.0 Enterprise includes the Ghost cloning application, MultiCast Server and MultiCast Assist Wizard, Ghost Walker, Ghost Explorer, the GDISK utility plus the Norton Ghost Administration Console and Console Client for remote management and post-cloning configuration.

"The proven leader in disk cloning technology, Norton Ghost 6.0 provides an easy-to-use solution for faster PC recovery and deployment," said Ross Wilson, Regional Director South East Asia at Symantec. "With its robust set of centralised management tools and post-configuration utilities, Norton Ghost offers organisations an effective solution to contain the cost of PC ownership."

According to research from Gartner Group and Forrester Research, MIS departments spend 50 percent of their time installing software and performing upgrades, accounting for a significant portion of the total cost of PC/server ownership. Corporations spend approximately US$9,000 to US$12,000 per user per year on maintenance, configuration and installation of new PCs. Norton Ghost is an effective tool for addressing these challenges, leveraging the proven cost-effective process of cloning a large number of PCs within a networked enterprise environment. Ghost extends those benefits even further by including remote management and post-cloning configuration capabilities.

"With Norton Ghost 6.0, Symantec provides Corporate IT with a great method of installing Windows 2000 on desktop and mobile computers, adding a flexible, fast and robust tool to the growing arsenal of utilities already available to ease large scale migration to Windows 2000," said Tod Nielsen, vice president of developer marketing for Microsoft in the US.

Using Norton Ghost 6.0, administrators can set up a single PC and clone a standard disk image across the entire enterprise, including local, networked systems or laptop computers. A new Win32 client supports server-initiated cloning activity, which allows for the complete cloning and post-cloning reconfiguration of clients from the administrator's console and eliminates the need for the administrator to visit a user's workstation with a boot disk.

A new Tasks management functionality provides clear procedural guidelines, allowing the administrator to specify the sequence of events such as cloning, post-cloning configuration, or unique Windows NT SID generation. An event log provides verification and alerting. After completion of a given task, a new event log is generated which includes a task summary that tallies the number of clients to which the task was applied and then notes the results.

Critical workstation configuration data is stored in the Norton Ghost Console, enabling the quick reconfiguration of a machine after the cloning operation. This includes such data as machine name, workgroup, domain, gateway, machine description and TCP/IP settings. A new Client Grouping feature simplifies the targeting of machines by allowing a system administrator to include certain clients or sets of groups in a PC recovery, rollout or upgrade.

For increased usability, Ghost Explorer now has the ability to browse images and add specified files and folders. In addition, an enhanced GDISK utility addresses both performance and ease-of-use issues by extending cleaning and repartitioning capabilities to drives larger than 8GB as well as providing a Department of Defense (DOD) specified wipe of a disks content.

Norton Ghost 6.0 provides more robust operation in a wider range of environments. By expanding file system support to include the EXT/2 file system, Norton Ghost 6.0 provides cloning capabilities for Linux environments. Additionally, Norton Ghost 6.0 is Windows 2000 beta 3 ready, thereby making it an effective tool for the growing number of corporations migrating to Microsoft's new operating system. For increased flexibility, enhancements to Ghost Multicast Server enable administrators to multicast a Ghost image from a NetWare server.

Pricing and Availability
Norton Ghost 6.0 is available through the Value Licence Program. The recommended price for a 10 to 24 user licence is RM110 per node.

About Symantec
Symantec is a world leader in Internet security technology and technology solutions that help companies manage and support workforces that use laptop computers and other mobile devices.

The company is a leading provider of software products for the consumer market and is rapidly growing its presence as a provider of solutions to enterprise organisations.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Founded in 1982, Symantec maintains corporate headquarters in Cupertino, California with regional offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland. 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.