Anti-virus Software: Quick Heal Wins Slugfest

Quick Heal retained its numero uno position ahead of Kaspersky in the Channel Satisfaction Survey; it was status quo for Norton, Trend Micro and eScan in the next three positions

Like every year, anti-virus space was again extremely competitive in the Channel Satisfaction Survey 2015. The bigger co-incidence was it was not only the same top 5 again, but they all retained their positions from the survey in 2014. So Quick Heal was again the most popular choice of the channel; Kaspersky was close on its heels with Norton (Symantec) a little behind. Trend Micro and eScan  bring up the rear at #4 and #5 respectively.

The anti-virus market is extremely crowded and the channel structure seems to have changed drastically in the last couple of years back with old favorites like Microsoft, McAfee and Check Point being ousted by the likes of Kaspersky, Quick Heal and eScan. What turned the tide for the Indian vendor Quick Heal was its high scores on most parameters under marketing and after sales support. Partners are particularly endorsing Quick Heal’s presence of service centers in different localities and cities as well as its ability to provide satisfactory repair and replacement services.

Even on the marketing support front, Quick Heal seems to have opened up a gap on the traditional leaders like Norton and Trend Micro. Further, the proposition of value-for-money seems to have tilted the scales in favor of Quick Heal; therefore, notwithstanding its payment issues with a section of the channel community, Quick Heal has enjoyed the partner mindshare. It is only the quality of the online resources that Quick Heal offers and its partner portal that partners are yet to be satisfied.

Kaspersky is a close #2 and notwithstanding its changing of a long relation with a national distributor, channel partners still maintained a steady relationship with the vendor. This despite Kaspersky still not having the largest market share in India, but partners vouch for the quality of the product, its price vs performance ratio innovative marketing programs. In addition,  schemes for channel partners coupled with timely settlement of back-end incentives and training and certification programs for partners have paid off for Kaspersky.

Norton scored well in the diversity of product range, user-friendliness of the products and overall product reliability. In fact, it beat both Quick Heal and Kaspersky in the overall product quality stakes. However, it is over profit margins that the company suffered the heaviest blow with both Quick Heal and Kaspersky getting an excellent review. That has been followed with Norton losing foothold over marketing support parameters. Norton though impressed partners with a proactive service approach and its online support where its support tools helps the partners in maximizing their revenues by differentiating their business. It also offers go-to-market plans, sales tools and literature which are drawn and collated from former sales activities.