AVG updates its AntiVirus for Android

On November 28, AVG Technologies announced the latest update for their AVG AntiVirus for Android.  Features  being promoted in the latest update include:

• New design: sleeker & easier-to-use interface
• Faster and more efficient access to features, tools, and sub-categories
• New dashboard
• New categories & menus
• A “widget” feature  allowing users to monitor and interact with features of the product without having to open the app 
  

 AVG offers both   free and paid versions of antivirus for smartphones.  You can learn more about their mobile solutions at http://www.avg.com/us-en/for-mobile

 

AVG Technologies gained entry into the Android mobile security space in November 2010 with its $4.1 million acquisition of Droidsecurity (www.droidsecurity.com ) from Maayan Ventures, a group of private investors and DroidSecurity’s managers.  At the time, Droidsecurity offered both  free and paid versions of their products.  DroidSecurity was the  maker  of the first full-featured Android anti-malware application DroidSecurity mobile Security Suite The company was  founded in 2009 in Tel Aviv, Israel.  By August 2010, they had hit the 2.5 million-user mark. 

You can't claim  to be the first to offer the first free product on Android by buying the company that has a more legitimate claim.  Transitivity doesn't count here.  Check the dates.  Perhaps the first 2.5 million doesn't count. 

http://www.avg.com/ww-en/avg-acquires-droidsecurity

http://mediacenter.avg.com/content/mediacenter/en/news/avg-updates-its-antivirus-for-android-and-introduces-new-avg-safe-browser-for-ipad-and-iphone.html

2010 – A Year of Security Acquisitions - Addendum: Link to PC World Battle of the Security Superpowers

Any time a company wants to expand their product line, go into new areas, or add new functionality to a product, they go through a make, buy, or license decision. Often, the quickest way to acquire the new technology is through an acquisition. On a somewhat different level, companies find themselves caught in a perpetual buying mode, because they need the acquisition to help justify their current stock price. They may require the revenue/cash flow generated to help make up for the fact that the revenue/cash growth in their current core technologies is slowing down (which could affect the stock price). They may need this extension to plug a hole in their current product portfolio for competitive reasons and/or to make themselves look more attractive to investors in case they are planning an initial public offering (IPO). A firm may need a cash infusion through an equity investor to help fund and accelerate future growth.

Major Security Acquisitions – 2010

• Intel may have changed the security playing field with its August $7.6 billion (US) acquisition of McAfee. Security will be placed in Intel’s chips and ultimately into a variety of devices. Intel stated that McAfee will be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary. McAfee had been trading near a one and two year low at the time of the acquisition (which has recently been approved). http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/news/2010/q3/20100819-01.aspx

• Hewlett Packard - purchased security assurance company Fortify Software in August, and ArcSight, security compliance and management, in September. Over the years, Hewlett Packard has been mentioned as a possible acquirer of Trend Micro.

• McAfee acquired Trust Digital in May. This strengthens their presence in mobile security. http://newsroom.mcafee.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=3653

• Avast - Growth equity investor Summit Partner purchased a minority interest $100mm (US) in Avast in August. Avast has been growing rapidly and surpassed 130mm users in September. http://www.avast.com/pr-avast-software-crosses-the-130-million-user-threshold

• AVG Technologies – In June, AVG Technologies acquired one of their major US distributors, Walling Data (education, government, non-profits, and resellers). This acquisition also strengthens their US based support. http://www.avg.com/us-en/press-releases-news.ndi-230728 AVG Technologies acquired DroidSecurity in November. www.droidsecurity.com This gives them a strong presence in the Android space. They currently have no solution for Symbian, however. http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/11/avg-technologies-acquires-droidsecurity.html

• Kaspersky – Kaspersky, while not making any acquisitions in 2010, has been growing rapidly. According to IDC's annual report, the company grew by 44.5 % in 2009 and has acquired a 5.8% overall market share. Kaspersky Lab is at fourth place in the IDC rating of Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor for 2009. The rating was published in IDC's Worldwide Endpoint Security Market 2010-2014 Forecast and 2009 Vendor Shares report. http://usa.kaspersky.com/about-us/press-center/press-releases/kaspersky-lab-continues-its-global-market-growth . They will probably announce a Droid security solution in Q1 2011.

• Sophos - In May, Sophos stated that it planned to sell the majority of its business to private equity investment firm APAX Partners for $830 million US. http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2010/05/apax-sophos.html

• Symantec purchased PGP /Guardian Edge in the encryption space in April. McAfee had divested itself of PGP in the early 90’s. In May, Symantec purchased VeriSign’s Identity and Authentication business.

• Trend Micro purchased Mobile Armor in November to strengthen their data protection and encryption portfolio. http://trendmicro.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&news_item=847&type=archived&year=2010 Gartner saw the acquisition is a positive development for Trend Micro and its customers. Rumors about Trend Micro being “in play” surfaced during the summer. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6880U620100909 In the past, they have been mentioned as an acquisition candidate for both Cisco (who has made a number of acquisitions in 2010) and Hewlett Packard. In September, CRN suggested that Trend Micro should be on Oracle’s hit list for acquisition. http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/channel-programs/227300309/hurds-top-five-oracle-acquisition-target-hit-list.htm?pgno=4

• Webroot acquired Prevx, a provider of cloud-based anti-malware solutions, in November. http://pr.webroot.com/momentum/corp/technology-acquisition-cloud-security-110110.html . In July, Webroot had acquired BrightCloud, a Web content classification and security services provider. http://pr.webroot.com/momentum/corp/acquisition-url-filtering-saas-070710.html

• Google – Google has entered the security fray. On December 17, Google announced that they were adding a hacked site alarm for search results. When Google believes a site has been hacked, a sentence will appear under the search result stating, "This site may be compromised." Google provides a similar warning to steer users away from sites found to be infected with malware. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Google-Adds-Hacked-Site-Alarm-for-Search-Results-466461/


See the link below for a slide show on CRN’s list on their take of the 10 most important security acquisitions of the year.
http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/security/228702000/the-10-most-significant-security-acquisitions-of-2010.htm

December 28 Addendum - PC World Battle of the Security Superpowers

PC World tested 13 consumer internet security packages to "see which ones can protect your data without overburdening your PC". Below are links to the complete article and to the table illustrating the ranking the products. To view a table that consolidates the overall scores from PC World "Battle of the Security Superpowers" and PC Magazine "Best Security Suites for 2011", go to:

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/12/pc-world-battle-of-security-superpowers.html

Hint - for the top internet security suite - Think the color yellow. Complete reviews and tables for PC World are at:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/214618/battle_of_the_security_superpowers.html

http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=214618&page=1&zoomIdx=1

AVG Technologies Acquires DroidSecurity, Teams with Google on Internet Security, (LinkScanner, AVG Security Toolbar)

AVG Technologies has yet to go through with their Initial Public Offering ( IPO) (it’s still business as usual on both the London Stock Exchange and Warsaw Stock Exchange, despite this!) http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/07/avg-technologies-prepares-to-go-public.html for more information), Nonetheless, while the AVG Technologies IPO has been on hold, they have been busy.

On November 10, AVG Technologies announced the acquisition of DroidSecurity, a provider of tools and services to protect Android devices. On November 19, AVG Technologies announced that they were they were going to partner with Google broaden the search functionality of AVG’s Security Toolbar and AVG LinkScanner. http://www.avg.com/us-en/press-releases-news.ndi-284377 http://www.avg.com/us-en/press-releases-news.ndi-197

A December 30 AVG Technologies blog discussed, in part, how companies like AVG are working to make sure that additional security is available to protect smart phone users. http://jrsmith.blog.avg.com/2009/12/how-will-smart-phones-and-social-networking-affect-cybercrime.html This acquisition jumpstarts AVG’s role in protecting users on the Android™ operating system.

Prior to the DroidSecurity acquisition, mobile protection was a gap in AVG Technologies' product portfolio. Competitors have been offering protection for awhile (not for Droid obviously). For example, as paid products - Trend Micro offers Trend Micro Mobile Security (Symbian), Symantec offers Norton Smartphone Security for Symbian and Windows Mobile, Avast Mobile Edition (Palm, Windows CE, and Windows Mobile 5), Kaspersky Mobile Security (Windows Mobile, Symbian (on Nokia).

Protecting Android devices presents a nice opportunity for monetization (cutting to the chase, revenue!. According to Digitimes Research - Smartphones, tablet PCs and notebooks will all become the mainstream terminal devices in the mobile Internet market in the future with smartphone shipments having a chance to reach 800 million units in 2013. This is more than double from 2010, with tablet PCs at 100 million units and notebooks at 300 million units. http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20101118VL201.html

DroidSecurity has both free (over 4.5 million downloads) and paid ($9.99 US) version of their product. The pitch to upgrade:

• Complete protection from SMS spam, scams and phishing attempts
• VIP support
• No disruptions or advertising

DroidSecurity is a provider of mobile security solutions, for all Android™ devices (smartphones, e-readers, tablets and appliances). For more information on DroidSecurity http://www.droidsecurity.com/

AVG Facebook Fans, Pleased With the Switch to Google, Not As Pleased With Toolbar

There were a number of people clicking “like” on AVG’s fan page regarding the announcement (the flip side of this is that there are people who will click like on anything. There is no dislike option). For those taking the time to comment, there were a number of people pleased that Yahoo will no longer be the search engine installed with the security toolbar. There was also a significant number of people (around 25%), who had less than positive comments regarding toolbars, in general.

One Facebook fan commented, "Having "search" functions in tool bars are redundant. All browsers have selectable search bars built in now. All most ‘toolbars’ do is eat up memory and take up space.” Toolbar users will be able to use Yahoo on the AVG Security toolbar for another six months. Based on fan comments, though, it looks as if people will switch sooner rather than later.

Note that when people install AVG products, the box to install the toolbar is pre-checked. So people must actively opt out in order to not have it installed on their laptop/PC. It is an optional install and there are support pages on the AVG site and the web explaining how to uninstall it, for those who don’t wish to use it.

Possible Reasons for the Switch from Yahoo to Google

• From a business perspective, the Google search engine is a superior engine.
• The Google search engine has 2/3 of market share in the US. Yahoo has only about 1/6 of the market. http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/11/comScore_Releases_October_2010_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings

• This may increase AVG user’s installing/retaining/using the toolbar for searches and other purposes on the bar.
• AVG’s monetization opportunities, after product revenue, including OEM revenue, are on the toolbar, to a large extent.

It would be interesting to be able to compare the Yahoo contract to the Google contract to see whether AVG Technologies will accrue less revenue from Google on a “per something” basis, but will make up for it in volume. Customer satisfaction with the toolbar should increase. In negotiations, Google probably was the 800 pound gorilla.

For more information on the AVG Security Toolbar, go to http://www.avg.com/us-en/special-toolbar-first-run-tlbrc-v2-mcr7