greenber@uunet.UU.NET (Ross M. Greenberg) (11/20/89)
Without comment on Pam's book, perhaps some firsthand knowledge related to you might go a long way towards helping to understand why there is so much animosity between various anti-virus vendors and the CVIA. PC-Expo timeframe, two years ago. Viruses are just starting to get some mention in the press, anti-virus vendors are starting to pop out of the woodwork. Pam Kane (Panda Systems), Mike Reihmer (Foundationware), Ray Glath (RG Systems), Ron Benevistie (sp? - Worldwide) and myself (Software Concepts Design) all get a phone call from some unknown guy named "John McAfee", the provider of C-4. He related his intention of starting the CVIA. With him as chairman. And said, in his call to me, that everybody else on a long list of vendors (including the people above) had already joined the CVIA and that he needed my answer immediately in order to get a press release out the next day or so. In part, the press release said that the vendors (and it was *only* vendors, with no intent on getting any other type of company in any way whatsoever involved!) represented 95% of the anti-virus community. Forgive my ego, but at that time chances are good that FLU_SHOT and FLU_SHOT+ represented a good 80% of the market (volume, not $$$, due to my wonderful business sense, sigh). So, it made no sense to me that Mr. McAfee would make such a claim before I had opted to join his CVIA. I resented, also, the idea that there was virtually no agenda as to what CVIA was going to actually do, that it would be the decision of this self-appointed chairman. The majority of the anti-virus vendors were East Coasters --- he was other there, somewhere on the other side of New Jersey. Then, unpon checking with the above mentioned list of people, I found that the same lie had been told to them: that "everybody else has joined except for you...". We all got on the phone, started chatting and decided that if the start of the organization was going to be on a non-truth, we wanted nothing to do with it. Mr. McAfee's representations to the press, with few notable exceptions, have made me happy that I made the decision that I did so long ago. With the exception of his recent representations with regard to the 10/13 "problem", he has always struck me as a fear-monger. The CVIA seems to only represent products that he personally seems to get bucks on -- I'm all for capitalism, obviously, but I'm pretty honest about it. What other firms in the anti- virus community does Mr. McAfee's CVIA represent? Why don;t we hear from them? If CVIA represents anti-virus vendors, why does it sell competing products? I've spoken to Mr. McAfee on the phone on a few occassions. I disagree with many of his viewpoints. He's certainly entitled to them, but he has a certain responsibility with the public rleations vehicle he has, quite successfully, created for representation of his products. That's to make sure that facts are represented as facts, opinions are represented as opinions. I'm not sure whether there is a knowing or unknowing crossing of that line, but from my viewpoint the facts coming from CVIA are not representative of the facts as I, and the other anti-virus vendors I'm affiliated with by friendship or by simple competition, seem to agree on. Just a simple question: if CVIA claims that their numbers are based upon a theory that 'n' percent of the sites infected are reporting, where do they get their 'n' from? Why not 2*n or n/2? It's like reporting how many rapes took place last year: you can *only* ascertain data that you have. You can *not* extrapolate. If you do, that becomes opinion, not fact. Yet, CVIA represents this as fact. That's a problem. CVIA does a lot of good in this field, however, being a good source of programs (the SCAN series is excellent!) and of general virus information. Also, one of the few companies with cross-over information: I'm only in the PC field, and know nothing of Mac's, for example. CVIA seems to have most bases covered on that -- but I refuse to believe any number coming from CVIA without full explanation of the history and background of those numbers. On 10/13, Pam Kane called up John McAfee to try to make peace. He specifically was not interested and she tells me that he hung up on her..... (Sorry for the length of this) Ross