Re: Anti-Virus Change/Eval

["Frank T. Shylkofski" <frank.shylkofski () KEYSTONE EDU>]

Being the team lead for Keystone College with both the anti-virus and
also having several experiences with "free vendor assistance", I thought
should caution you.  Charlie, my director and the person you are quoting
below, expressed very well why we came to the conclusion to stay with
the current product.

When I did the initial testing we tested 3 products that were rated as
good as or better that our corporate product.  In the testing phase, as
Charlie said, all of the products worked equally well. So the main thing
comes down to price.  

The hidden price of conversion that Charlie refers to does include the
obvious technician install time but there is other things that we also
considered: uninstall issues with the old product, user education,
getting the product to commuters and employees at home, confusion calls
inundating our help desk, and though we were not offered "free
installation", you will also need to factor in technician time to shadow
the consultants doing the installation.

We use Symantec's corporate product which for the most part has been
running itself for almost 8 years now.  Our department is comfortable
with its few quirks and our students and employees refer to it as the
"yellow shield".  If the yellow shield is crossed out or is not there,
they call the help desk immediately.  A comfort level like that comes
with time and constancy and when it comes to anti-virus that kind of
comfort is almost priceless.  

Frank T. Shylkofski
Network Technician
Keystone College

-----Original Message-----
From: Graham Toal [mailto:gtoal () UTPA EDU] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 5:00 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Anti-Virus Change/Eval

> > Switching products is a lot of work, and will require significant
> staff
> > time.  Calculate this into any savings model you may be developing.

Actually one of the two biggest vendors offered to send a team
of conversion specialists to do the switch over from the
other one for us, no charge.

These guys really try hard to take each other's business :-)

G