Rediff On The Net, Infotech: K7 ships NT version of its anti-virus package


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November 5, 1997

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K7 ships NT version of its anti-virus package

Madras-based K7 Computing is bringing out a Windows NT version of its anti-virus package, VX2000 NT, which will provide server-based protection against viruses for the increasing number of installations that are opting for NT as the network operating system.

"We already have a network loadable module version for Novell Netware networks and a Windows 95 version. The new feature that we have added in these versions is the Opcode Generic Program Analyser," said K7 Computing CEO J Kesavardhanan.

T O D A Y

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Put in simple terms, most anti-virus packages do pattern matching to detect a virus. They look for a particular familiar sequence of bytes. This particular feature will allow logical matching of patterns. In other words, the feature will look for specific instructions and logic in the program rather than the pattern or algorithm.

The company has had 4,000 installations for its DOS and LAN versions with a revenue of Rs 12 million during 1996-97 and about 120 installations of its NLM versions with a revenue of around Rs 2.4 million in the same period. For its Windows versions, the company projects around 5,000 installations, totalling a revenue of Rs 17.5 million for 1997-98.

K7 also has a tie-up with the US-based Cyber Media Inc, with whom it has jointly developed software products for the US market such as PC911, a hardware diagnostics utility, and First Aid, a troubleshooting utility for Windows users.

It has earned revenue of around $200,000 from the same.

Plans are afoot to include the opening of a US office. "The maintenance and updating of these packages is turning out to be a major income earner. Also we are moving into offshore development and body-shopping," said Kesavardhanan.

Interestingly, the anti-virus market is one where Indian brands have the major share. Dr Solomon of the UK-based Solomon Software Limited, Norton Anti-Virus of US-based Symantec and VirusScan of US-based McAfee are the three major foreign anti-virus packages which have almost 40 per cent of the market share. The rest is taken by Indian brands such as F-Prot, IAVT 4, SmartDog, Vaxine, Red Alert, Red Armour and Quick Heal that have a strong regional presence.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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