Trend Micro Ships Antispyware For Enterprises

Trend Micro is beefing up its security product line with the launch of a stand-alone antispyware product for enterprise customers.

The Anti-Spyware Enterprise Edition is the latest release that builds on Trend Micro’s May acquisition of InterMute. Trend Micro released a stand-alone antispyware product targeted at small and midsize businesses in June. The enterprise edition, originally slated for an August release, is available now and costs $11.55 per user for a 501-user license.

The antispyware product is integrated with Trend Micro’s antivirus products, but the company is releasing a stand-alone version so it can target customers with other vendors’ antivirus software, said Lane Bess, president of Trend Micro's North American operations, based in Cupertino, Calif.

“Customers and partners told us they want an antispyware solution for the enterprise that operates independently of any other antivirus solution they may have,” Bess said.

For partners, Trend Micro has done a good job of turning InterMute’s antispyware sproduct into an enterprise-class product, said Wes Parker, a director at Stalwart Systems Group, a Charlotte, N.C.-based solution provider.

Bess said the antispyware product detects spyware, protects end users from spyware, and cleans up and restores systems if they get infected. Clients and servers are shielded by a defense system that actively monitors file downloads and uses a spyware database and heuristic rule set to scan and clean desktops, laptops and servers.

The product's enterprise-class management enables easy deployment and administration across large organizations, particularly via the centralized management capabilities of Trend Micro Control Manager, Bess said. Through a Web-based console, all machines on the network can be managed from one enterprise server. The product can discover client machines automatically and transparently push agents to desktops without the need for end-user intervention.

“InterMute had a very good product,” Parker said. “It was very effective as far as dealing with spyware, but they needed to make it more manageable and usable in a large enterprise environment. We’re pretty excited about the result.”