Kaspersky is a successful second-tier anti-virus vendor. The company has flourished by producing anti-virus signatures faster than its competitors. Marketing so far has been informal, spread primarily by word of mouth and the electronic equivalent. Here's an update:
- Main services: virus control, riskware/adware/pornware control, spyware control, spam and banner advertising control, phishing/dialers/network attack control.
- Major new version of technology coming out in late 2008. Will have:
- Much faster scanning.
- Ability to whitelist software that is recognized as good. Instead of just saying "Pass" or Bad," the technology can now say "Good," "Pass," or "Bad," helping to avoid false positives.
- Sandbox environment in which suspect code can be tested to see if it's behaved abnormally.
- Improved automated exception handling for users (power users still have normal management capabilities).
- Main competitors: Symantec/Norton, Trend, McAfee.
- Kaspersky's view of its competitive strengths:
- The new whitelisting feature.
- Higher performance.
- Protection more transparent and less intrusive for users.
- Calendar 2007 bookings were $203M; profitable.
- Calendar 2008 bookings expect to be up 40% on 2007.
- All sales are through channels, supported by telemarketing and direct sales to large organizations.
- 10% to 15% of revenues were in the U.S.; company is investing to grow this, e.g., in a more professional marketing organization.
... David Ferris