— Recognizing that small businesses prefer software suites to point products, Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) is bridging the gap between classic endpoint security and backup and recovery with the new Symantec Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition.
Announced today and available in June, Symantec Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition combines Symantec’s endpoint and messaging security products with desktop, laptop and server backup and recovery for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
With an estimated 50% of SMBs operating without endpoint protection, 47% not backing up their data, and 28% of SMBs going out of business when a disaster strikes, Blake McConnell, Symantec’s senior director of product management for SMB solutions, says its time for a wake-up call.
“We continue to focus on protecting endpoints from external threats through the protection of messaging and Web gateways because e-mail continues to be the number one way cybercriminals get in, but we also need to talk about protecting infrastructure, which is a fancy way of saying backup and recovery,” says McConnell. “Information protection clearly means more than endpoint security.”
To that end, Symantec Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition includes Symantec’s Backup Exec System Recovery Server Edition and Backup Exec System Recovery Desktop Edition for data and application protection.
The suite’s backup and recovery features allow SMBs to recover individual files and folders or complete Windows systems to dissimilar hardware or virtual environments in case of a virus outbreak or a system failure.
Symantec Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition carries a price of $67.58 per user for 50 seats and includes antivirus, spam and phishing protection, data loss prevention and server backup and recovery.
With the advent of the Advanced Business Edition, Symantec is lowering the price of Symantec Protection Suite Small Business Edition, its previous offering. Small Business Edition costs $42.98 for 25 seats, but lacks some of the security features and server backup and recovery capabilities of the newer suite.
In addition, Symantec Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition can connect to the cloud. Customers can deploy on-site and hosted technologies with add-on options for hosted email and Web security from Symantec Hosted Services.
