Feedback on ease of use for Symantec and Norton Anti-Virus software

We are looking to improve our anti-virus protection at our organization.  We talked with our volunteer network admin guru about what products he recommends.  He said for our environment that two other products would be better.  When we asked him if the Norton or Symnatec would be ok, he said we would probably run into issues, given our network and how we are configured. 

I was wondering if there was anybody in the TechSoup community that have availed themselves of the offering from Norton or Symnatec.  We are looking to protect our fileserver and Microsoft Exchange server.  

Thanks,

Michael Tress 

Hello Michael, our non-profit has an Exchange server, a file server, many other servers, as well as a bunch of users' computers.  We have used Symantec Corporate AV for 6+ years and haven't had any troubles.  It is centrally managed, so you can deploy the clients without having to touch each computer or server.  Perhaps your volunteer network guru has their own personal favorite?  What did they recommend to you? 

You might want to consider that your volunteer network admin isn't familiar with Symantec as well as the other two products.  I would consider the other products merely to ensure better tech support.  How expensive are they?  If, as Gary asked, we knew what the products were we might be able to let you know if they are effective.

I can echo Gary's experience with Symantec Corporate AV.

Our tech guy, had an immediate negative reaction to symantec.  To paraphrase, he said we would be facing problems if we went that way.  His two favorites were TrendMicro or McAfee. 

We are on a tight budget ( who isn't?), but before we make any decisions to improve our protection, we would like to see what others are doing and justify cost vs. benefit of approaches.

Currently, we are using an open source AV product that doesn't quite meet our future needs.

Thank you for your feedback. 

Hello Michael, thank you for the updated information.  As I said before, our org has used Symantec for many years without any issues.  My chief complaint is that it has a rather large footprint and can be a resource hog on our older machines.  McAfee would be very similar.  Our org is looking to swap our AV vendor.  The primary reason that we are looking at swapping is due to price, not functionality.  (Our org is too large for the donation from Tech Soup, so we have to buy from a reseller.)  Hope this is some help to you.

Best of luck,

Gary  

Gary, take a look at NOD32 by eset.com.  They give a 50% discount for non-profits.  It has a small footprint so should work better with your older machines.

Michael - um..  well you could have your tech look at NOD32 if he is allergic to Symantec - but again I echo Gary in that Symantec Corporate AV has been pretty great.  Its a lot different than the desktop Norton AV product that might be giving your tech pause.