TrendSecure?

[Santilli]

Hi
Just got a notice about TrendSecure.
http://www.trendsecure.com/
Anyone tried it?


Thanks

Greg

 

[Mercutio]

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Step away from the keyboard, Greg. It's for your own good.

 

[Pradeep]

We are moving away from Trend at work. Switching to Sophos. Reason being lack of decent support.

 

[Sol]

I ditched them a while ago when their software started to become more bloaty...

 

[Tannin]

We are still selling Trend, but it used to be 100%, now it's down to about 50/50 with Norman AV. Same reason as Sol - it's getting bloaty. If I wanted f**^%ing Norton bloatware, I'd buy it.

 

[Mercutio]

Can you get Kapersky shrinkwrapped or OEM copies?
Or NOD32?

Or perhaps just install AVG and be done with it?
I mean, is Antivirus software really a profit center for you?

 

[Tannin]

NOD32 has the most ridiculous marketing method I have ever heard of. You have to do 15 minutes extra work per copy just to get paid. (Ask Time about this - he has posted the arcane procedure here soimewhere.) Until they get their act together marketing-wise, NOD32 - No way! I really only have the following choices: Trend, Norman, Norton, Mcafee, Vet. Norman is the pick of them.

Pity, as I like Kapersky, and take heed of all the kudos NOD32 gets here from people who know their stuff. We do use AVG from time to time, but the slow updates are a concern, and it misses stuff that Trend and (in particular) Norman get.

 

[Tannin]

In an old thread:

Handy's NDO32 pricing for Australia is correct. However, as Bung pointed out, there is a discrepancy between Oz pricing and the rest of the world, although not to the extent that Tannin's drug-induced hazy recollection seems to indicate (too much Tea).

I have been a NOD32 reseller for a couple of years, and know a bit about the distribution here. The guy who does it pushed NOD32 hard in the early days and gave Eset some exposure. He certainly doesn't pay more than other distributors - the opposite is more likely. It actually goes further than the markup: quantity breaks aren't as good and there are related pricing policies which are a little unusual. Based on my personal experiences with him, I think he marks it up because he's an arrogant, greedy asshole - just my personal opinion, of course.

As for support, it's a case of: what support? If you can contact him by phone, he's technically quite useless. As a reseller, you get no better access to online support than end users, and that's not great, consisting largely of peer support in public forums on Wilders.

The margin is 30% on new sales, which are made by making an individual funds transfer for each customer and emailing the receipt in an email with a predefined format. After a delay of about a day, you get an emailed response with a licence key. You'll also have to download the latest non-trial version of the software, install it on the customer's PC, enter their licence key, and download the latest updates (partly to check it's working).
Less bank fees, you gross AU$17.

Renewals cost 30% less than the initial purchase, and reseller margin is reduced to 20%. This translates to about AU$7.60 gross profit, which I find doesn't cover the time to essentially repeat the whole process (new licence key, etc).

On top of this, the fact that the pricing IS over the odds, combined with a 10% tax that customers DON"T have to pay when buying from an overseas website, means you can't really compete on price. Instead of AU$65, the customer only has to fork out about AU$53.

It gets worse with multiple licences: even without the tax, a customer with 7 users to renew can buy better retail from an overseas website (eg New Zealand) than I can buy wholesale. :boom:

In that same thread.

Not a hope in hell.

I take it you are serious, Time. All that bullshit paperwork for one lousy software sale?

Never in a million, million years. Hell would freeze over first. I wouldn't consider a procedure like that for a product worth five times that much. Who TF are they kidding? I simply can't believe that any company would operate that way.

Hey - Norman Anti-virus, when they first started distributing in Australia, had a procedure where you had to make one call to complete the installation. I bought five of the product, then discovered the bullshit telephone requirement. I don't have time for this shit. When my distributor called to ask if I wanted to buy more, I said "no way".

Result #1: the next day, Norman's distributor called me direct, listened to my point of view, and saw it my way. If you buy a copy of Norman Anti-virus now the telephone registration bullshit is nothing but a faded memory.

Result #2: we are happy to sell it.


It's called "customer feedback". Successful businesses know about it. Failures don't do it.

NOD can stick their business where the sun don't shine. Absolutely no way we would take crap like that. Ever.

 

[Sol]

It seems it's another case of totally ineffectual anti-piracy measures being a complete pain in the arse.

The alternative procedure of;

Grab the latest trial or non trial version from the website and install
Replace executable and update dll with modified version
Forget about it

Is so much simpler that it's worth doing even if you re paying for the product.
Unfortunately it's obviously not an option for resellers...

 

[time]

The NOD32 distributor in New Zealand couldn't be more different. For resellers, licences are available online immediately and there is automatic credit, so you can supply the licence anytime and pay a consolidated bill a several days later. You can also review your order history to the extent of looking up customer user ids and passwords, etc.

Of course, the franchise system forbids them from seeking sales in Australia. However, if you apply for registration as a reseller, they will naturally feel obliged to supply you.

Highly recommended.