I've never been a fan of Symantec/Norton or most of their products. I do use it at work as my AV product, but only because I inherited it and the CIO isn't willing to change at this time. I guess if I have anything good to say about them it's that I have made a little money on the consulting side when I have to go and fix a system that was hosed because the user either installed or upgraded their version of the home internet protection suite.
Now Symantec and McAfee (who I'm also not crazy about) along with a few others are crying about Vista. Whiners aren't high on my list either. I do find it interesting that while many are crying fowl Kaspersky Labs is defending Microsoft. Either they know something that the others don't or they are hoping that by playing nice they will have an "in" with Microsoft and Vista while the others are out, or maybe they just have a positive outlook on things. Alan Shimel has a good story about those who are whining in his fable The Squealing Pigs, the Golden Goose and the Big, Bad Wolf.
Something else I'm not excited about is letting Microsoft have my servers, desktops and security. I don't care how seamlessly OneCare integrates with Microsoft products (especially Vista) I'm scared of having a Microsoft AV product. I will keep an eye on it and see how it compares to other products. If it shows itself to be a good product I will consider using it as one tier of protection.
I do like the fact that Symantec is not sitting back on their laurels while the Vista issue unfolds. They announced several new or upgraded products and initiatives earlier this week. Some of them look promising. I'm not sure yet how I feel about their Security 2.0 initiative, but they are showing that they don't intend to roll over and play dead. If they lose market share in the desktop space then they intend to gain in other areas. I like that mindset. I'll reserve judgement on the products until I see how they perform.
