News
Computer Associates Ships SMB Protection Suites
Computer Associates is shipping release 2 of its Protection Suites for small and medium-sized businesses, and has expanded the offering to include six separate products to address specific market segments.
CA’s Protection Suites are designed to provide multiple layers of protection, ranging from antivirus and anti-spyware technologies, to providing backup and restore capabilities for critical business information. The suites also deliver data migration services to simplify upgrading users’ PCs.
The new release of the suites adds a Web-based management console to let SMBs centrally manage data protection tasks, users, policies and reports. A new graphical dashboard simplifies performing antivirus, anti-spyware, and data backup and migration operations.
Additionally, a single installation process handles setup and configuration and automates compliance with backup policies, according to officials at Islandia, N.Y.-based CA.
“We looked at a lot of feedback from customers [and] put the components that they needed into the suites,” says David Luft, CA senior vice president of SMB product development.
The expanded list of offerings include the CA Desktop Protection Suite for protection of data on users’ desktops and laptops, the CA Server Protection Suite for protection of centrally stored and managed data, and the CA Business Protection Suite for protection of both server- and desktop-resident data.
CA has suites designed especially to work with Microsoft’s Small Business Server – the CA Business Protection Suite for Microsoft Small Business Server Standard Edition and the CA Business Protection Suite for Microsoft Small Business Server Premium Edition.
Finally, the company is offering the CA Protection Suite for Midsize Business for Windows, which is designed for SMBs managing 50-500 PCs using Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition; Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Standard Edition; and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005, Workgroup Edition.
The Midsize Business for Windows suite starts at $6,995 for a 50-user license. The other suites are priced from $325 to $1,099 for a five-user license. Add-on packs for all suites are available in increments of five, 10 and 20-user licenses.
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.