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McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

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Re: McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

#11

Post by vtail »

vetinari wrote: post #9
vtail wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is a pretty good example of how "Enterprise Software" will continue to quickly lose favor with customers. My personal opinion is that the "Enterprise Software" market is now more than ever about sales and marketing rather than innovation and and delivery. How so? According to McAfee, the problem only affected less than 0.5% of their non-enterprise customers. I'm sure only small fraction of those affect…

> In 2009, McAfee spent $839mn on SG&A and $325mn on R&D. Sure, the R&D number is less than SG&A, however: - SG&A number includes administrative expenses, paying rent for buildings, providing customer support etc. Building rentals, fixed assets depreciation, services and energies used can go to COGS (R&D) if it is possible to allocate them to specific cost center. If you have building (or part of it) dedicated to dev…

I understand. "Fully loaded cost" in my calculation above includes office space, equipment etc. - usually it ~30% on top of annual salary.

Re: McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

#12

Post by vtail »

hga wrote: post #10
vtail wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is a pretty good example of how "Enterprise Software" will continue to quickly lose favor with customers. My personal opinion is that the "Enterprise Software" market is now more than ever about sales and marketing rather than innovation and and delivery. How so? According to McAfee, the problem only affected less than 0.5% of their non-enterprise customers. I'm sure only small fraction of those affect…

McAfee has now changed their estimate to "[...] a small percentage of our enterprise accounts globally" http://siblog.mcafee.com/support/mcafee-response-on-current-...

I was specifically referring to their non-enterprise customers. For them, their statement says that "a fraction of our consumer base–home users" [is affected].

Enterprise customers are in a different league: even if individual users are extremely unhappy, it's the IT department who makes the final decision about switching vendors.

I'm extremely unhappy about using Lotus Notes for email/calendar where I work, but can do nothing about it, other than whining on the internet.

Re: McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

#13

Post by hga »

vtail wrote: post #12
hga wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McAfee has now changed their estimate to "[...] a small percentage of our enterprise accounts globally" http://siblog.mcafee.com/support/mcafee-response-on-current-...

I was specifically referring to their non-enterprise customers. For them, their statement says that "a fraction of our consumer base–home users" [is affected]. Enterprise customers are in a different league: even if individual users are extremely unhappy, it's the IT department who makes the final decision about switching vendors. I'm extremely unhappy about using Lotus Notes for email/calendar where I work, but can…

Hmmm, I guess I confused what you said with this early statement from them:

"We believe that this incident has impacted less than one half of one percent of our enterprise accounts globally and a fraction of that within the consumer base."

Re: McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

#14

Post by raheemm »

blantonl wrote: post #3

I think this is a pretty good example of how "Enterprise Software" will continue to quickly lose favor with customers. My personal opinion is that the "Enterprise Software" market is now more than ever about sales and marketing rather than innovation and and delivery. Just look at the release budgets for enterprise software - sales and marketing are at the top, while R&D and support are at the bottom. If any open sou…

So if there is room for innovation in the antivirus market or enterprise software market why aren't more startups attacking that space? Enterprises are strictly served only by other enterprise software companies. CRM, financial systems, billing systems, HR systems, - all of these enterprise apps are appaling in their usability and implementation. Is it because the modern startup culture is interested only in solving "easy"/consumer issues?

Re: McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

#15

Post by bobdole2695 »

blub wrote: post #8
blantonl wrote: post #3

I think this is a pretty good example of how "Enterprise Software" will continue to quickly lose favor with customers. My personal opinion is that the "Enterprise Software" market is now more than ever about sales and marketing rather than innovation and and delivery. Just look at the release budgets for enterprise software - sales and marketing are at the top, while R&D and support are at the bottom. If any open sou…

vtail has already done a good job of proving most of your statements as false, but I would like to drive the point further: "If any open source implementation of anything like this happened, I can assure you the comitters and developers would be appalled and embarrassed (in public), and significant lessons would be learned all within users view." There is no merit to this argument as the open source development model…

Most open source developers work on platforms that don't suffer from the same level of malware abuse. There isn't pain to make someone care enough to write one.

Besides, AV is addressing the symptoms and not the actual problem: The MS operating system is completely broken from a security model. It won't improve until it's scrapped and redesigned. There is no patch for all those decades of broken and boneheaded.

Re: McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

#16

Post by ebiester »

raheemm wrote: post #14
blantonl wrote: post #3

I think this is a pretty good example of how "Enterprise Software" will continue to quickly lose favor with customers. My personal opinion is that the "Enterprise Software" market is now more than ever about sales and marketing rather than innovation and and delivery. Just look at the release budgets for enterprise software - sales and marketing are at the top, while R&D and support are at the bottom. If any open sou…

So if there is room for innovation in the antivirus market or enterprise software market why aren't more startups attacking that space? Enterprises are strictly served only by other enterprise software companies. CRM, financial systems, billing systems, HR systems, - all of these enterprise apps are appaling in their usability and implementation. Is it because the modern startup culture is interested only in solving…

The cost of customer acquisition is sky high. Now, if I can pull a series A out before I get a customer, this might be fine. However, the pipeline is long, and nothing is guaranteed.

Here's a personal example. The company I just finished a contract with was looking to purchase a product that will cost in the low 5 digits. The company spent two months on due diligence in between dozens of fires to fight. Even after selecting the company, it may be two to three more months before they actually buy the product.

So, that's four to five months between initial contact and sale for a product in the low 5 digits. When I worked on products for governments, we had people specially working on RFPs and they would put man-months into these, and an answer could be up to a year away.

Now, it's possible to get into the business without this, but you have to have an in for your first client.

Re: McAfee.com sleeps through its nightmare scenario

#17

Post by bad_user »

bobdole2695 wrote: post #15
blub wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vtail has already done a good job of proving most of your statements as false, but I would like to drive the point further: "If any open source implementation of anything like this happened, I can assure you the comitters and developers would be appalled and embarrassed (in public), and significant lessons would be learned all within users view." There is no merit to this argument as the open source development model…

Most open source developers work on platforms that don't suffer from the same level of malware abuse. There isn't pain to make someone care enough to write one. Besides, AV is addressing the symptoms and not the actual problem: The MS operating system is completely broken from a security model. It won't improve until it's scrapped and redesigned. There is no patch for all those decades of broken and boneheaded.

> AV is addressing the symptoms and not the actual problem

This is where you've lost me. Show me a piece of invincible software.

Even stuff like Java with its top-notch security model and with its managed code has been vulnerable to various zero-day exploits. Even virtualization environments.

I have a Windows workstation that's been running for 2 years, with no resident AV running and with the standard firewall. I do have a good AV, but I'm doing a scan every 3 months or so.

Never caught anything, mostly because I'm a technical user that knows how to stay out of trouble.

Give me a normal end-user using any of those non-MS platforms you mentioned and I'll show you how I can break his computer. Quite simple really ... "This game needs administrative rights to install. Please enter your password:"

Not to mention that the desktop managers running on Linux have serious security flaws that haven't been fixed just because the platform itself is obscure enough for crackers not to bother with it.

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