KUALA LUMPUR: Avira Sdn Bhd (Avira), with its new AV10 versions of its popular software, is expecting East Malaysia to contribute between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of the company’s total growth for Malaysia.
LOOK FOR UMBRELLA PROTECTION: (From left) Lim, Tjark and Carol after the AV10 launch in Plaza Low Yat.
At the recent launch of Avira Antivir Premium and Avira Premium Security Suite here, that was officiated by Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Fadillah Yusof, it was disclosed that as of January 2010, the company’s Avira Antivir Personal freeware registered 483,401 users in Malaysia out of which 130 users registered in Kuching and 161,511 users in Kota Kinabalu.
Speaking at the event, Avira’s chief operating officer Carol Lim said: “Currently, we have 10 million users in Southeast Asia and we are expecting operations to grow its consumer base to 20 million users during the same period of one year.”
She added that all current Avira users are entitled to free upgrades from version 2009 to AV10 automatically, without having to uninstall the old programme.
Avira’s chief executive officer Lim Kar Aik revealed to The Borneo Post that: “The sales and purchase rate in East Malaysia has always been high.
“They are willing to purchase the original copy of antivirus instead of the freeware.”
He added that user confidence in Avira is very apparent when compared with number of users registered the previous year, which in total stood at 1,052,182 users for whole of Malaysia, out of which Kuching had 51,362 users and Kota Kinabalu had 56,650 users.
“The focus last year was the Klang Valley and the surrounding areas.
“So this year, we are hoping to go to East Malaysia to start exploring the market in-depth.
“For now, we have two distributors for our products in East Malaysia, one in Kuching and another in Kota Kinabalu,” related Carol and added that they also have a sub-distributor.
Carol also stated that the pricing for Avira products remain the same for both the East and West Malaysian market.
“We want it to be more accessible to both East and West Malaysian users without being a burden price wise.”
One of the key feature that makes up the new AV10 is the Avira AntiVir ProActiv.
Whilst most IT security solutions provide a signature based engine and a heuristic engine that scans for DNA of a particular threat, Avira’s AntiVir ProActiv is a Host-based Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) that works by monitoring the behaviour of computer systems in real-time.
Carol explained that: “Avira AntiVir ProActiv completes the existing signature-based, generic and heuristic detection process by providing a third layer of advanced protection against unknown malware.”
Other additional features include “time scheduling” to its Parental Control feature that allows Internet surfing time to be restricted by parents and improved updating speed.
Also present at the launch was Avira GmbH founder and global chief executive officer Tjark Auerbach.