Online security software maker Trend Micro Inc yesterday unveiled its anti-virus pay service targeting medium-sized enterprises as part of a blueprint to reinvent the company and move it away from being a mere product maker.
"As many as 60 percent of our corporate customers have said they are willing to pay for a more advanced and thorough anti-virus service, but only 10 percent of them have already done that," said Marvin Chiu (邱立全), Taiwan unit general manager for the Tokyo-based Trend Micro, at a press conference yesterday.
Chiu said there was a growing awareness of pay services among the firm's corporate clients. But the problem was that these clients had been reporting that they could not find ideal service providers, he said.
Medium-sized enterprises that have 50 to 200 personal computers need to pay NT$200,000 per year in advance for the anti-virus pay service, named Red Service, that enables customers to get on-site relief service provided by engineers dispatched by Trend Micro's 11 service distributors nationwide, the company said.
The anti-virus firm aims to recruit 200 corporate customers with sales of NT$20 million by year's end and a total of 1,000 customers with NT$100 million worth of sales next year, boosting the ratio of service sales to 15 percent of total revenue, up from the current 10 percent, Chiu said.
The number of new viruses skyrocketed by 200 percent quarter-on-quarter, or 300 percent year-on-year, to a record high of 7,598 in the second quarter. They were responsible for 64 percent of computer infections, according to a biannual report released by the company's TrendLabs on Monday.
Four kinds of viruses -- instant message worms, the anti-Microsoft Trojan, handset viruses and Malware Tandem -- cause the most severe damage of all viruses, the report said.
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