* BITDEFENDERWhat is the main reason that made BitDefender open a market in New Zealand? - Mihai Rusescu:New Zealand’s growing market was a natural fit for BitDefender’s global strategy. Our sales and marketing strategy at worldwide level is to try to penetrate in countries where the market achieves or exceeds a certain volume of sales and also where are some potential opportunities on most important developing channels (end users, SMB, educational, governmental, etc). Another reason is that New Zealand represents the Asian/Pacific region of the world well in terms of their IT legal environment. They have memberships with several worldwide organisations dedicated to internet regulations, information sharing, protecting privacy, combating piracy, etc. Both New Zealand and Australia are countries with very low rates of piracy in this part of the world and this is encouraging for us. I believe that this region has a big potential and we are happy how things are developing here. Together with our partner in New Zealand, Reckon Ltd., BitDefender products entered the New Zealand market and look to succeed to be one of the top solutions in IT Security, from the end-user to corporate users.
Will BitDefender be present at any upcoming IT&C event in New Zealand this year? - Kerry Wood:BitDefender, the world’s 6th leading provider of data security and services at the consumer level, is making their presence known in the New Zealand market with specific offers of discounts and promotional projects at the Small Business Event at May 30- June 1.Visitors can meet us in booth No. 254 in hall 2 .Our product manager Nick Richardson will be on hand to discuss reseller opportunities and special corporate requirements. Obviously we have special discounts for enquires on the day.
BitDefender’s local representative is looking to grow the reseller base. What are the special offers to attract resellers at the event? - Kerry Wood:Resellers visiting the BitDefender booth at the trade show will be able to get a free look at many of the company’s products including, Bit Defender Internet Security, BitDefender Professional and the new BitDefender Mobile Security solution. We will have a free 3 month trial of Antivirus Plus v10, free licenses for internal usage of the selected product and information on the entire range. Resellers that sign up during the show will receive extra discount structured over the next 6 months as well as online web training.At the Small Business Expo we intend to give away as many trials and sign up as many resellers as we can. Simply, the product is an outstanding advertisement in itself and we want to share this with the market.
What does BitDefender currently mean in terms of market indicators? - Mihai Rusescu:BitDefender is the best known IT brand in Central and South-Eastern Europe, with local partners in more than 60 countries on six continents.BitDefender has repeatedly proven its fast response to virus epidemics. In 2006, the BitDefender products came out 1st, at global level, in more than 10 comparative tests worldwide. Aside from being declared “Best Buy” by PC World USA, BitDefender has also been singled out by Business Week as the antivirus tool rivaling the market leaders, Symantec and McAfee. Our company was nominated last year among the 100 hottest European companies in point of investor interest by the American review Red Herring and it also featured among the top 100 High-Tech products in the world according to the IDG Labs, USA.2007 also brought good tidings as BitDefender received the Top Ten REVIEWS Gold Award, a distinction granted to the best security product in the world.
How do you account for this rise and enhanced performance? - Mihai Rusescu:I believe the answer is in our nature, as Romanians, and in our IT knowledge. This has a lot to do with dedication, the desire to make a good product, the fact that when you put a lot of passion into what you are doing to get extraordinary results. And our results now mean the highest sales growth rate among producers worldwide and the widest known IT product in the area. We knew how to keep user level intrusiveness low – that is, we focused on minimizing, and even eliminating, false positives. I should also mention the role of innovation, which accounts for approximately 90% of our work. New threats appear all the time, and faced with their speedy renewal, you cannot just wait for someone to give you a lecture on the subject or tell you what you need to do. You need to think about solving the issue at stake, creating the best possible products and this is where innovation steps in. With its more than 60 products, BitDefender now protects users against viruses, spyware, adware, rootkits, spam, phishing and hacking, due to its firewall and its parental control features.
What are the most important security trends for 2007? - Mihai Rusescu :2007 is sure to bring about an increase in e-mail-based attacks. This year, spam messages with attached images and no text are going to account for more than 50% of the total spam at global level. At the moment, most antispam solutions provide no protection against this phenomenon. As far as malware is concerned, it will mostly consist of exploits on Office-type productivity applications and on online communities (social networks sites) such as MySpace and YouTube. These exploits can be used together with rootkit applications to spread spyware.The vulnerabilities of Office-type applications are going to count as main vectors for corporate attacks. Such vulnerabilities are taken advantage of and traded “underground” to create computer attacks that are custom made for certain victims.2007 will also see more and more already infected computer applications appear on the market. In these cases, hackers pretend to be willing to contribute to users’ security while hiding viruses or spyware in the application’s code.