Bitdefender GravityZone combines multiple security services into a single platform to reduce the cost of building a trusted environment for endpoints.
N/A
Norton Small Business
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Cybercriminals increasingly target small businesses because they expect it to be easy. Norton Small Business is an antivirus service available as a subscription for protecting a multitude of endpoints, from NortonLifeLock (formerly Symantec).
Norton and Symantec seemed to attract every hacker and spammer in our opinion. Kaspersky was difficult to manage thru the cloud access. All 3 of these products used a large portion of the computer resources and had many of our users locked up during scans. We always seemed to …
Hands down, Bitdefender wins. Once Norton Corporate was uninstalled, we installed out new Bitdefender Gravityzone purchase. Upon the first scans, Bitdefender found a few malware objects and a few trojans th at had been there - who knows how long - ! Nothing else will do for …
It just works. I have seen multiple viruses and malware get past other antivirus software like TrendMicro, Webroot, and Kaspersky. Bitdefender GravityZone always catches what others miss. It has a very light footprint when it comes to system resources. The centralized management console is nice, but I prefer the console before they redesigned the UI.
For a small or mid-sized firm with distributed computing requirements like ours, Symantec Norton is well suited. It is an ideal solution as it is easy-to-use and the pricing is the right fit on account of geographical customisation. Small businesses, especially, realise the value of endpoint protection only when they encounter serious issues, therefore their product becomes well suited for those who may dither because of the lack of clarity and poor pricing structure of other options. However, the most important feature still remains its effectiveness, which makes it the most optimal option at the right price
Once installed, Bitdefender [GravityZone] runs silently in the background with little to no need for user interaction.
The cloud-based console provides for easy computer management and deployment.
Bitdefender [GravityZone] is extremely flexible, with a policy-based system wherein different profiles can be created (i.e. a policy to deactivate the firewall, a policy to allow for admin control on a machine, etc.) and pushed out to individual computers.
Computers can be grouped into different categories, with different policies automatically deployed to each category.
Bitdefender [GravityZone] is relatively resource-light and runs well even on lower-end computers.
Who do I ask? This is my chief complaint is once the initial licenses were purchased through Bit Defender, there was no one to contact that could help navigate some of the initial questions I had with regard to specific policies to implement for our file server. The parent web site is, well, hard to navigate when one is trying to "learn" the system.
The second issue is in increasing the licenses. It took several days for the parent company (by contact and phone) to inform me that they could not increase the licenses and I would have to go through a private vendor. There was no intent to connect me to a vendor or provide a vendor list until I asked specifically. YET I continue to get email from the parent company reminding me to pay an annual fee for the licenses purchase through the private vendor. The parent company can see the number of licenses yet did not sell them to me.
Gravity Zone Dashboard, while excellent for those who have experience, is not particularly intuitive for those who have never used it. There does not seem to be a lot of documentation for those responsible for implementation.
It works. I rely heavily on my vendors to provide a product that works, is easy to implement, and that they support. As well as be a decent value for the money
The console is easy to use, but has grown to have a lot of functionality. The only challenge is that all functions (even disabled and not installed ones) are shown. It would be great if only the functions that are active would be visible.
Support is an area Bitdefender has always struggled with. While their products work great, the GravityZone dashboard is very technical in nature. If you aren't IT inclined, it could be difficult to setup. While most times support is helpful, we tend to work with them over email because of their very thick accent, they are hard to understand over the phone.
We were a Kaspersky shop for years. Kaspersky was a resource hog and it didn't even block half of what was thrown at it. We had more outbreaks and more end-user complaints in a year of Kaspersky then we have had in almost three years of Bitdefender.
The ROI for Bitdefender is hard to quantify except that it requires very little maintenance time from our staff.
We've spent no time troubleshooting user complaints or issues from users, so it has been a big time-saver over our previously used anti-malware software.
Bitdefender's customer service is usually pretty good and also very responsive, so I don't have to wait by the phone or to keep checking email to resolve a problem--although our issues have been mostly informational and not a problem with functionality.
Data Protection is ensured which ensures positive focus from all team members on their work which certain results in improved productivity at the individual level of 2-4% that consequently improves organisational productivity.
Our cost of external inputs for data security issues is NIL therefore obviously reducing the bottomline by 1-2% which would be the average cost incurred by organisations of our size in general. Of course an event maybe costlier, but I am sticking to averages since we have had no events.
Overall, we feel that the cost of security software is also lower on account of optimised pricing by Symantec. While the expense in this segment is a fraction of total IT costs, and therefore tangible savings are also fractional. However, So, since the value of outcomes (lack of security related negative events) is much higher, intangible benefits are even higher.
