Achievers
Books
Business
Calendar
Community
Controversy
Cuisine
Eateries
Education
Enterprise
Faith
Good Samaritans
Health
Infotech
Media
Memories
Movies
News Archives
Opinion
Specials
The Arts

McAfee.com is now world's largest online ASP

Nitish S Rele

When the 'I LOVE YOU' virus wreaked havoc in May, McAfee.com serviced about one million customers in 24 hours.

Now, the Santa Clara, California firm is the world's largest Application Service Provider of online PC security and management services.

"Analysts had predicted that we would have half a million paid subscribers by September 2000," said Srivats Sampath, co-founder, CEO and president of McAfee.com

"But we signed more than half a million subscribers in less than nine months, which also makes us the fastest growing paid subscription service on the Internet," he said.

Indeed, Sampath is pleasantly surprised with the number of paid subscribers. "Thirty per cent of our subscribers are international, from 230 countries," he said. "We've penetrated every part of the globe in less than a year."

McAfee.com has also launched a protection and optimization service for handheld and wireless devices. The new Palm, Pocket PCs are now carriers of viruses. "So we decided to come up with a service that would block viruses that spring a surprise on you," said Sampath.

Among the components of the Wireless Security Centre are VirusScan for Handheld, which scans and eliminates viruses before they get the opportunity to infect the PC; Virus Information Broadcast, which broadcasts essential information about viruses; Software and Hardware MatchMakers, which scan a device for current system status, identify the latest software or hardware and review specific devices for compatibility.

"What has happened is that because of Internet e-mail, viruses can spread anywhere within minutes. There are an estimated 10 million users of handheld digital devices, and these are expected to go up tenfold by 2003."

McAfee.com delivers software benefits through an Internet browser, eliminating the need to install, configure and manage the technology on a local PC or network. It also offers a personal firewall service to protect consumers from hackers.

Today, this publicly traded firm has over 350,000 visitors a day and has signed up more than half a million paid subscribers. "We are doing very well as a company," said Sampath.

Before co-founding McAfee.com in October 1998 with Bill Larson, Sampath worked at Netscape Communications Corporation and Intel Corp.

For more information, call McAfee.com at (408) 992-8100 or check out www.mcafee.com

Previous: Mystic Merchant

Tell us what you think of this report