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Symantec is announcing its first antivirus software for the Palm Pilot operating system and Microsoft Pocket PC-based handhelds, making it possible for businesses to centrally manage the devices' antivirus configurations and updates.

Expected to ship in August, Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds Corporate Edition is designed to protect Palm OS and Pocket PC-based handheld devices against viruses, worms, and Trojan horses.

Norton AntiVirus 2004, which will cost $50 for a new annual subscription or $30 as a renewal, also will be able to decompress and scan peer-to-peer file-sharing programs for viruses they might hold. These new features are not yet in the Symantec Corporate Edition, but in the past Symantec has added new capabilities when they have been found to work well in the home-user edition.

Automated Updates

Once the software is installed on the user's desktop PC, the antivirus program is sent to the handheld during synchronization with the PC, or over a wireless LAN or infrared connection. The handhelds can be kept up to date with the latest signatures for new viruses or worms via automated updates through the desktop synchronization process. Another means for updating directly to the handheld will be wirelessly over the Internet, through what Symantec calls its LiveUpdate Wireless service.

"Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds Corporate Edition works under the Symantec enterprise security architecture in terms of logging events," says Laura Garcia-Manrique, Symantec's group product manager. This means the event and configuration manager for the handhelds is the same as that used for other Symantec antivirus products so that centralized alerting, logging, and reporting functions are possible.

"And the manager can configure each handheld, for example, by preventing the user from turning off the AutoProtect real-time scanning," Garcia-Manrique says. The antivirus software for handhelds costs as much as $27 or as little as $10, depending on license volume.

Symantec is competing against Computer Associates, Network Associates, and Trend Micro, among others, with business-oriented antivirus software for handheld devices.

More Than Antivirus

For remote users, Symantec next week also will unwrap Norton AntiVirus 2004, the next version of its desktop antivirus software.

The 2004 edition adds the means to detect and stop not only worms and viruses, but also other dangers and annoyances such as spyware, adware, dialers, and "joke programs" that might be downloaded from the Internet or sent as an attachment.

"We're not going to capture them all," says Kelly Martin, senior product manager at Symantec. But Symantec is analyzing the most prevalent and nettlesome spyware and adware, among other junk, to include signatures that users can activate if they want to exclude them.

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