Trend Micro Launches Anti-Spyware Products

Trend Micro is making the most of its May InterMute acquisition with the unveiling this week of stand-alone antispyware products for the SMB, enterprise and consumer markets.

The SMB and enterprise versions of the antispyware products will give partners the opportunity to upgrade their existing Trend Micro customers, said Tom MacArthur, principal of Storbase, a Waltham, Mass., solution provider.

The Cupertino, Calif., security vendor does plan to integrate the InterMute anti-spyware technology into its security gateways, but the company decided to release stand-alone versions of the products because many customers that have antivirus and firewall solutions are clamoring for help with spyware, said Lane Bess, Trend Micro president, North America.

MacArthur confirmed Bess' assertion. "It's pretty rare to have customers begging you for a solution, but about six months ago that is what was happening," he said. "Companies were having more and more trouble with spyware, and the freeware out there doesn't solve the problem for businesses."

Unlike freeware offerings, Trend Micro's releases provide both centralized management and preventive capabilities, he said.

"Many companies still look at spyware as a nuisance because it causes machines to lock up," MacArthur said. "But it is far more important. It is called spyware because it is spying and stealing information."

Available June 27, the SMB version of the antispyware product will be priced at $20 per seat at the five-to-25-user level up to $11 per seat at the 501-to-1,000-user level. The enterprise edition, slated for August availablity, will be priced at $9 per user for 1,001-plus users. Lower per-user pricing is available for higher user counts.

Trend Micro also jumped deeper into the antispam market last week with its acquisition of Kelkea, a San Jose, Calif., IP filtering and reputation services provider. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Kelkea's service is basically a realtime blacklist of untrusted IP addresses, said Trend Micro CEO Eva Chen. The company plans to expand the Kelkea technology to block phishing and pharming attacks as well, she said.

Kelkea's service will be resold through Trend Micro's solution provider partners, Chen confirmed, but partner compensation plans have not been finalized.