JBPowlesland@UNCAMULT.BITNET (08/11/90)
Earlier, Padgett Peterson comments seemed to imply that some people resent having to pay McAfee for virus protection - despite SCAN's relative inexpensiveness. It's my impression that this resentment is very real and much of it comes from the fact that users can get relatively the samelevel of protection on their Macintoshes (ie. Disinfectant and GateKeeper) FREE OF CHARGE. Until Macintosh viruses become as numerous and malicious as the PC viruses, I can't see this attitude much in the near future. Just a thought... Jim Powlesland Academic Computing Services University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N 1N4
padgett%tccslr.dnet@uvs1.orl.mmc.com (Padgett Peterson) (08/11/90)
I am astounded by the assertation that $5800 for 100 service copies of McAfee's SCAN is considered excessive. Considering the continuing effort, response time, and updates required, the cost seems minimal compared that of sending technicians out unarmed (yes, we have a service license). Just the savings in time alone in battling infections and the knowlege of what you are facing justifies the cost. More important, at a time when many manufacturers require individual copies for each CPU, the concept of the service and site license, both available from McAfee and very few others, are godsends to overworked staffs. Besides which, I can think of very few packages available for $58 each, much less ones that can be used on any machine. No-one thinks twice about the telephone company charging more for a business line than for a residential one. Similarly, the $25 "shareware" fee for home use cannot be equated to the unlimited use "service license" fee. If an alternative is desired, nothing is stopping anyone from writing their own software. For me, the price is cheap and the concept well worth supporting. Padgett Peterson Personal Opinions
GMS@PSUVM.PSU.EDU (Gerry Santoro - CAC/PSU 814-863-4356) (08/15/90)
Jim Powlesland writes: >Earlier, Padgett Peterson comments seemed to imply that some people >resent having to pay McAfee for virus protection - despite SCAN's >relative inexpensiveness. It's my impression that this resentment is >very real and much of it comes from the fact that users can get >relatively the samelevel of protection on their Macintoshes (ie. >Disinfectant and GateKeeper) FREE OF CHARGE. Not entirely true. Part of the 'resentment' (if you can call it that) comes from the fact that the organizational license is rather restrictive. I certainly support all of McAfee's efforts and also believe he is certainly entitled to renumeration. However, my understanding is that much of the license fee is based on support calls from users. There should therefore be some provision whereby a college/university can designate a local support person and pay a smaller fixed fee for the license. I see the inflexibility as being the primary culprit. I realize that other software vendors charge a heck of a lot more but then again we can simply ignore them in many cases. Also, with alternatives like F-PROT and the IBM VIRSCAN that cost substantially less it is real hard to justify major expenditures or overhead-laden cost-recovery to our administrators. Again I want to say that I VERY STRONGLY SUPPORT Mr. McAfee's efforts and agree that he is absolutely entitled to make whatever rules he wishes regarding his product. However I believe that Mr. Powlesland's analysis is a tad simplistic. Gerry Santoro -- Penn State University