Antivirus is one of the must-have applications on everyone’s computer, but if I walk into a new customer’s office and ask an employee what antivirus do they have installed on their computer the answer I generally get is, “I don’t know.” And that’s ok, but my next question is always is their antivirus up-to-date and again in general the answer is, “I don’t know.” So my first order of business ends up going around to every computer in an office to see what antivirus each machine is running and update it if needed. Many times I find that the subscription is expired so a trip to see the boss for a credit card is in order. Now for 2-3 computers this isn’t too big of a deal, but for more doing this on a regular basis to keep this customer protected is a waste of their money and a lot of time. There is a better way. In the past that better way required a server with an antivirus manager installed and bundled with a set number of licenses, allowing me to manage all of the customer’s computers from one place. This was awesome if I could convince the person paying the bill the upfront cost was worth it. That didn’t happen too often, so back to stopping by regularly to make sure the antivirus on every computer was updating and running properly.
Today, through the magic of the cloud no longer does a customer have to buy a server and install management software to track if a computer on a client’s network has up-to-date antivirus or if for some reason the antivirus software is not running on the machine. All you need to do is install the software on the pc and from the comfort of a website manage the antivirus clients and licenses. At a glance, it can be determined that Joe Bob has not received an antivirus update for over 2 weeks. Oh no, Joe Bob has a problem and doesn’t know it…but the cloud does. I can spring into action and pay Joe Bob a visit to get his antivirus back on track. On average, the cost for Cloud management of a computer’s antivirus runs $30 per computer per year. That’s about $150/year for 5 computers. That is less than what I charge Joe Bob and his company to come out once to check every computer to make sure the antivirus is working. I can do that from my office in a few minutes versus stopping by and spending 2 hours bugging Joe Bob and the other employees. There is value there. Simplified, centralized management that saves you money– why wouldn’t you invest in getting this set up in your office?
Many of the cloud antivirus providers let you remotely install the antivirus client on the computers without any interaction from the end user so they can go on working while their computer is secured from the cloud. Some of the top providers of cloud managed antivirus for small business are Bitdefender, Symantec, and Panda among others. This cloud based approach allows these companies to make sure your company not only has the latest tools to manage the security of your computers but to also make sure all of your computers are protected with their latest antivirus software and detection definitions to help keep your business safe.