Symantec Launches New Endpoint Protection Solution for SMBs

On Monday, Symantec officially lifted the curtain on the 2013 version of Endpoint Protection for the Small to Medium-Size Business (SMB) market. Touting simplified information protection, the 2013 version consists of various tweaks and improvements that are the direct result of customer feedback.

Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition 2013 can be deployed as a cloud-managed service, or on promise, with a faster install time and a wider list of options for supported platforms including Windows 8.

“Security issues don’t discriminate by organizational size — small businesses face the same threats as enterprises. Security is also complex and for small businesses it’s getting harder to manage every day,” said Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.

“Protecting their business information needs to be simple or it won’t get done. By providing one product with the choice of cloud-management or on-premise, Symantec makes it easy for SMBs to deploy and manage security.”

As expected, 2013’s version of System Protect improves on the previous year’s layered defenses with tweaks to SONAR and Insight, offering a more rounded level of host protection. There are other small changes, such as the firewall and USB protection, but traditional AV has had this for years (even Norton, Symantec’s consumer-focused offering).

For the channel, Symantec Endpoint Protection 2013 for SMBs also has a partner management console, allowing channel partners to monitor their customer’s environments (cloud too) from a single view.

Symantec Endpoint Protection 2013 is available now. Current on-premise customers may qualify for a discounted upgrade, but existing cloud customers will be updated and migrated automatically. New customers who come from a competing product will also get a discount.

More information on Endpoint Protection 2013 for SMB is here.