Symantec eyes pay-per-use software
Virtualization could end expensive long-term software licensing in favor of a pay-per-use model, according to Symantec.
Executives at the company said that years- or months-long licenses covering multiple machines could be slashed using virtualized applications to licensing deals structured as pay per day, per hour, or even per second.
Virtualized or streaming applications, where software is run on a central machine and streamed to computers over a network, allows monitoring of precisely how long each instance of the software is used.
"You can detect application usage so you can cut the number of licenses down to what is being used," said Ken Berryman, vice president of endpoint virtualization at Symantec.
"There are a lot of customers that would like to use that to only have to pay when using the software, but there is resistance among vendors to change the licensing model," he said. "What you cannot do today is go down to a charge-per-use model.
But licensing periods, Berryman added, are getting shorter, and one day may go down to individual usage.
Symantec is developing a prototype security service that will allow it to protect a machine with no installed security software using virtualization.
Berryman said using a built-in hypervisor would allow Symantec to set up a buffer to screen and intercept code before it is run on the virtual machine on a user's computer.
"Whenever a machine asks for some code, before you give it to them, you would give it to us, and we will scan against 47,000-plus virus definitions, and if it looks like a virus, we can inject our agent into that machine and kill the processes, and delete the files associated with that," he said.
Symantec is now deciding on how to deploy this virtualized security model and when there will be a market for it, according to Bruce McCorkendale, distinguished engineer in the CTO strategy office.
Nick Heath of Silicon.com reported from London.
This 'only use it occasionally' thing will not work, and the payment system is flawed as well, because I KNOW you are going to charge WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much for every instance that you use the software.
But as for symantec...yeah, I agree with the comment above me...I can't imagine using an antivirus that isn't protecting me 24/7.
@ karpenterskids:
The casual user does not need the functionality of Photoshop or Photoshop Extended. Thats why Adobe created Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Express which has in years adopted many of its more powerful sibling features. In addition to Photoshop, there are cheaper and even free alternatives that should be just as satisfactory for the casual user.
By installing Symantec antivirus you also agree to buy symantec powercards.
Each virus Symantec finds will take 250 credits You can buy symantec powercards at $29 each good for 3 months. If you have used up your cards within 1 month of obtaining your cards you must recharge or purcahse new powercards for continued cleaning and safety of your PC.
(...how do you folks continually put up with that crap, anyway?)
- by Heebee Jeebies October 9, 2008 3:17 PM PDT
- Well until you can put out software that doesn't suck you won't get a cent of mine no matter how you try to sugar coat and spew the supposed advantages to me of pay per use. The only thing Symantec software is good for is when you buy a box, it burns well and warms you for a minute or two. The rest is just over priced cr@pware that acts and works more like a virus than a program trying to protect you.
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- by taggartromkey October 10, 2008 9:35 AM PDT
- This makes me happy that I ditched Windows except on one of my pc's where it's dual booted with Linux. Symantec's idea of pay per use anti-virus will back fire. It will result in more people going without anti-virus software and an upsurge in virus attacks. This yet another reason to switch to Linux.
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