Trend Micro Bolsters Security Package

Trend Micro Monday announced a line of desktop and server security products intended for small to midsize businesses.

Worry-Free Business Security 5.0 represents a re-branding of Trend’s SMB client/server messaging security product line plus upgrades that integrate features such as behavior-based antimalware monitoring and an option for in-the-cloud Web security services to protect firms from malicious code, says Jon Clay, Trend Micro’s product marketing manager.

Trend Micro’s standard version of Worry-Free Business Security 5.0 provides e-mail messaging and Web security for Microsoft-based PCs and servers, while the advanced version also offers a way for the business to redirect mail to Trend’s in-the-cloud, antispam service.

In addition, there’s an option for using Trend’s Web Reputation Services that provide warning to users – with a green for go and red for stop warning – about visiting specific Web sites.

Also, for the first time Trend Micro has designed its security software to provide a security threat-protection mechanism for a third-party software product on the desktop, in this case Intuit’s Quickbooks financial and accounting package used by SMBs.

“We wanted to be able to block a hacker attack against Quickbooks but also to avoid false positives, so we worked with Intuit on this,” Clay says.

At Fairfield, Calif.-based FP Smith Parts & Equipment, which deals in heavy equipment and tractors, Jay Zelek holds the position of both the sales manager and head of IT. “We’re a small firm of about 30 people, so I do both,” says Zelek, a beta user of several months of Worry-Free Security 5.0.

Zelek says his company makes use of Trend’s Web Reputation Services for Web surfing, and as an Intuit Quickbooks user, he has found Trend’s software has been running quietly with Quickbooks so far.

Trend Micro competes with a number of e-mail and Web security vendors, including McAfee and Symantec (compare security products.)Worry-Free Business Security 5.0, which ships Monday, costs US$32.26 per user for a one-year license of the standard edition, with the advanced edition costing $59.32 per user.