Symantec's Growing Pains: Can Automation Fix Renewal Woes?
One of the things Symantec Chief Operating Officer Enrique Salem told Wall Street analysts recently is that the company is looking to take some of its experience in automating consumer subscription renewals to its small and midsize business customers. Symantec Channel chief Julie Parrish July 16 clarified that statement, saying such a system would certainly tell customers to renew with their VARs and would not circumvent the customer-VAR relationship. Still, it brings automation into the process.
In some ways, such a move makes sense. As companies get bigger, it gets harder for them to apply the personal touch with masses of customers. That's why VARs are so important to so many vendors with markets that include SMBs. VARs are in a position to provide that personal touch to small businesses while at the same time selling them products.
But Symantec is concerned that not all VARs are doing what needs to be done to renew those Symantec licenses at SMBs. Maybe those VARs could even be pitching an alternate security product. Who knows? To shore up a complex system where customers may fall through the cracks, Symantec is looking to take the concept of automated license renewal it has used with consumer customers and have it also be used by SMB customers. Parrish says partners would still get their piece of the deal. And the renewals would be less likely to fall through the cracks -- a big concern in the competitive market of security.
Except for this: Symantec's automated consumer renewals aren't so intuitive. Symantec came preinstalled on my personal Sony Vaio notebook when I bought it in 2005. Every January since then I've been cursing Symantec because I pay for the renewal and then I spend two or three days trying to get the thing installed and then trying to get a person on the phone to fix the part that doesn't work. It's not intuitive. It is labor-intensive. It is frustrating. I personally know others who have had similar problems with the renewals. Now Salem, who used to run the consumer side of things for Symantec, wants to bring renewal automation to the SMB part of the business at Symantec.
I can tell you the end of the story for my personal Vaio notebook. This year, not wanting to deal with all that anymore, I finally uninstalled Symantec. I initially replaced it with free AVG. When AVG started charging recently, my in-house IT guy got us a three-user license for a CA product, which is now protecting my Vaio.
Symantec has enjoyed a reputation as a channel-friendly company over the years. As it grows even larger, through acquisitions and organically, it needs to make sure the new business processes and systems don't tarnish that reputation.
For more IT related content on the blogosphere, check out www.ithub.com
Comments (6)
After reading about Symantec's renewal challenges I just want to chip in with my experience as a consumer.
My family has 5 laptop computers. All came with Norton AV / Symantec AV. When the first few limited free licenses approached expiry I tried to renew them. It was a thankless task, so I purchased new licenses. It was easier to part with $70 or so per system than to put up with the renewal process.
Over the past 15 months I bought a new batch of laptop PCs. When the first one fell due for Symantec renewal I uninstalled the original software and installed a new Symantec 360 package. I had purchased another copy for my own second laptop, but instead of installing it, I decided to evaluate Comodo antivirus (free).
Yesterday I received notice from Symantec that my 360 is due for automatic renewal. I cancelled out because I am happy with Comodo's free solution.
It is irritating that an antivirus product is needed to protect an operating system in the first place. Is antivirus software not just a security blanket so that we can continue to live with basic Windows design flaws?
Sure, I understand that there is a need to do something about all types of malware, and that is not limited to viruses. Rest assured, my Windows systems will never be unprotected. But there in lies an irony that should not be overlooked.
Antivirus software eats up CPU and memory resources could otherwise be used more productively.
Instead of using anti-virus software, should we not make a stronger case for better operating system design and for more dependable security?
- John T.
Posted by John H Terpstra | July 24, 2008 11:24 AM
My experience with Symantec has been exactly the same so I finally replaced it.
Posted by Frank Stiller | July 24, 2008 12:02 PM
Free AVG 8.0 does exist, and it does work. You could have replaced Free AVG 7.5 with it.
Symantec's security products all embed themselves deep within the operating system, making complete de-installation nearly impossible and upgrades not easy to accomplish either. It is telling that Symantec provides its own removal tool to extricate NAV or any of its other security products from a system. If and when my clients make a decision to use Symantec products, I generally get called in to clean up the mess. When installing a Symantec product to upgrade what is already in place, the odds of a successful install increase if one removes the older version entirely first. As to its subscription renewals, the current product constantly nags you to renew and the renewal install itself is a crapshoot. For a few bucks more, people really are better off saving hours of time, going to a big box store, buying the latest shrink-wrap Symantec product, and installing it after removing the old version. This recommendation does not speak well for Symantec products, does it?
Posted by Ben Myers | July 24, 2008 2:09 PM
I got a Symantec Endpoint upgrade to an SBS 2003 system with 6 clients. Non-intuitive upgrades is an understatement. I hired an IT guy to do the install. A few weeks later, my server started running out of disk space. I pulled it to get it repartitioned, and the space ran out again. The culprit was Endpoint stockpiling virus definitions and never deleting them. I got Endpoint upgraded to fix Symantec's product errors. Then my virus definitions stopped getting pushed out and upgraded to several (not all) clients (and the server). The problem this time was that I had upgraded an older version of Symantec Groupware that apparently needed deletion. This has cost me about $2000 in IT fees. Needless to say, when Endpoint outdates, I'll be looking for another vendor.
Posted by Geb Blum | July 24, 2008 5:44 PM
The reason that companies are not renewing their Symantec Anti-Virus licenses is that their product conflicts with network infra-structure and firewalls and is difficult to configure. Their latest product is a home product, not a business product.
We replaced the Symantec products with a business class anti-virus product from a different vendor.
Posted by Bart Kile | July 25, 2008 10:43 AM
I use SystemWorks and used a 2006 version which I renewed but moved it to to my laptop with Windows 2000 Pro. It would not download the GoBack feature. I now use the Windows BackUp system becuase I couldn't finds anyone or anyway to talk to some one at Nortons regarding this problem. You need to work on your problems. I also have found AVG 8.0 to be a great help and it's FREE.
Posted by Walter J McKenna | August 14, 2008 3:38 PM