AVG vs. Norton

After using Norton Anti Virus for over 2 years... I switched to AVG and AVAST (separate computers). I have been using both for several months now and am very pleased with them (mainly the fact that they are not resource hogs). I have urged a friend of mine to give them a try, but he is convinced that they can not be as good as Norton because they are free and you get what you pay for. He wants to know, as do I... how they can remain in business if they give away the product for free. I know that they charge for the pro version or business version, but what do they get out of giving away the free version that uses the same definitions and does the job just fine. How does a business model like that compete with one based on paid subscriptions?

 

They make most of their money from corporate accounts. Many give as a primary reason for offering a free, limited version is that it reduces the general level of virii, trojans, and spyware being spread around, making it easier for them and their corporate customers to deal with any new problems that arise. They also hope that those who try out the free versions will be impressed enough to make them buy their full-featured programs.

I hope your friend doesn't try that line on his girlfriend.

 

To go along with what the "player" said, I just read an article that puts it in a little bit different light. Say it costs $100,000 to "make" AVG, Avast, or AntiVir for that matter and it costs them another $100,000 to keep the virus definitions up to date. This cost will not really change whether or not they distribute 100 copies or 1,000,000 copies (assuming a free distribution via download). So if they can more than pay for this cost plus make some money selling the "full" versions to business at an enterpise level why not give a personal version away for free. Gives them a good name, and probably gets them additional business customers. For much less than what a typical add push by Symantec would cost. Note that the anti-virus companies that I mentioned above are all based outside the us. The shareholders of publicly traded companies here in the US look very unfavorably on companies that give things away. This model is only really applicable to software, as the additional cost to "ship" one more unit is practically nothing where as if you where to give away something more tangible the cost of one more unit would just be to high.

So as far as software is concerned "ya git what ya pay fur" isn't really true.

 

Personally I think Norton is an overrated piece 'o crap. I understand that you now have to upgrade to version 7 of AVG if you want to continue using it, as they are stopping support for version 6.

 

Just an adder to my previous post. That is why M$ makes so much money. There is no additional overhead to sell an additional software license. Of course M$ model is a little more complex because the $$s involved are so large but the same principal applies if it costs them $100,000,000 (that is one hundred million) to develop and ship the new edition of windows they would need to sell only about 500,000 copies of the full retail version of the software to recoupe that cost. Now throw on top of that the countless liscenses with oems, where in the third quarter of 2004 alone Dell sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 8.1 Million computers, every one with windows alrady ready and waiting. Even if they license to oems at $10 a pop that's $80 million dollars just from Dell in one business quarter.
I find it somewhat ridiculous that they have to come up with some water-downed version of windows to be able to compete in russia and asia, granted you incur additional cost to support areas outside the US but why water down the software. The reason is they would be showing there behinds in the US if they let those folks get full versions of windows for a much cheaper price just because they are outside the US. Instead they incur additional cost for a lesser product which they still have to pay extra money to support.
And they have so much frickin money that if a decent competitor comes along they can afford to invest that $100,000,000 and put something comparable out for free (See Netscape), or just by the competitor (too many to count). As of february this year M$ had $52.8 Billion in cash just laying around with nothing to do but sit there and look pretty. Based on their June financials they could operate for 3 years without making a single cent (I literally mean keep producing all their products and give everything away) and still be solvent

I will now get off my soapbox.

 

Got it. Thanks for the replies... I will pass it on.