Customer Value Enhancement, Endpoint Security Products Global, 2011 Frost & Sullivan s Global Research Platform Frost & Sullivan is in its 50th year in business with a global research organization of 1,800 analysts and consultants who monitor more than 300 industries and 250,000 companies. The company s research philosophy originates with the CEO s 360 Degree Perspective, which serves as the foundation of its TEAM Research methodology. This unique approach enables us to determine how best-in-class companies worldwide manage growth, innovation and leadership. Based on the findings of this Best Practices research, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present the 2011 Global Customer Value Enhancement Award in Endpoint Security to ESET. Key Industry Challenges Endpoint security remains a key component for providing anti- malware protection to consumers and enterprises. Frost & Sullivan s research shows that this market has become increasingly important as threats increase in sophistication and as the Internet continues to be an open forum for communication. As the threat landscape continues to exploit Web 2.0 capabilities, vendors face numerous challenges in the market. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have contributed to advancing the number of threats entering the corporate and home networks. In addition, with the increasingly mobile workforce, company data has become more accessible to attackers. In light of these threats, endpoint security vendors continue to improve their offerings in order to enable in depth security protection for consumers and enterprises. With more complex threats, security vendors are scurrying to remain ahead of the threats. The endpoint security market remains a competitive, mature market and vendors now more than ever need to implement technologies that provide protection from advanced threats. In addition to implementing enhanced functionality, vendors are challenged with creating ways to diverse their channel avenues and market strategy to optimize growth within the endpoint security market. Another challenge for endpoint security vendors differentiation in this highly commoditized market. The adoption of free anti-virus products is quickly disrupting the consumer market. Free products are lucrative options for the consumer market, but usually the security vendors is offering the free option as a means to gain better conversion rates from free to paid users. The free option has given the market an attractive, but unproven pricing mode that gives users the flexibility to add advanced paid optional features to the free product as their needs change. This freemium channel has created additional challenges for security vendors to overcome within the endpoint security market. Vendors are faced more than ever with the need to offer solutions that 2011 Frost & Sullivan 1 We Accelerate Growth
can essentially be of better value by integrating more functionality at a cost effective price. Impact of Customer Value Enhancement Award on Key Stakeholders The Customer Value Enhancement Award is a prestigious recognition of ESET s accomplishments in the Endpoint Security. An unbiased, third-party recognition can provide a profound impact in enhancing the brand value and accelerating ESET s growth. As captured in Chart 1 below, by researching, ranking, and recognizing those who deliver excellence and best practices in their respective endeavors, Frost & Sullivan hopes to inspire, influence, and impact three specific constituencies: Investors Investors and shareholders always welcome unbiased and impartial third-party recognition. Similarly, prospective investors and shareholders are drawn to companies with a well-established reputation for excellence. Unbiased validation is the best and most credible way to showcase an organization worthy of investment. Customers Third-party industry recognition has been proven to be the most effective way to assure customers that they are partnering with an organization that is leading in its field. Employees This Award represents the creativity and dedication of ESET s executive team and employees. Such public recognition can boost morale and inspire your team to continue its best-in-class pursuit of a strong competitive position for ESET. Chart 1: Best Practices Leverage for Growth Acceleration 2011 Frost & Sullivan 2 We Accelerate Growth
Key Benchmarking Criteria for Customer Value Enhancement Award For the Customer Value Enhancement Award, the following criteria were used to benchmark ESET s performance against key competitors: Enhancement of Customer Value Improvement of Customer Retention Expansion of Customer Base Research Methodology In order to select the Award recipient, analysts quantify several market factors for each market participant according to predetermined criteria. Through primary and secondary research methods, all companies' market position and market growth are tracked, and those exhibiting significant growth are noted. Company's customer base and revenues are compared year on year to monitor customer response and market expansion. When a company continues to demonstrate solid growth rates, from market expansion and customer retention, it is a candidate for the Customer Value Enhancement Award. Chart 3: Frost & Sullivan s 10-Step Process for Identifying Award Recipients Best Practice Award Analysis for ESET The Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Enhancement is presented each year to the company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers with a focus on improving the return on the investment that customers make in its services or products. This Award recognizes the company's inordinate focus on enhancing the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and ultimately customer base expansion. 2011 Frost & Sullivan 3 We Accelerate Growth
ESET s Performance in Endpoint Security ESET has aggressively marketed endpoint security products to consumer and enterprise markets across the globe. Over the past decade, the company has experienced high growth with a large presence in EMEA territories. Penetration in North America continues to grow as ESET expands its brand recognition. While building ESET s brand name, the company saw that individuals were putting themselves into situations in cyberspace that exposed them to risks, software alone could not prevent. Securing Our ecity, a concept to help educate San Diego, California citizens, and beyond about cybersecurity was bone out of this concern. While deploying this initiative toward the market, the company also has worked steadily to enhance its product portfolio within the endpoint security market. ESET continues to witness strong growth through its products, successful partnerships and across all of its distribution channels. ESET s endpoint security products continue to show fast performance and high detection rates. The company attributes its superior performance and effectiveness to its ThreatSense engine. ESET s ThreatSense engine utilizes real-time behavior analysis to block viruses, spyware and other malware threats from entering a user s computer. ESET s Threasense engine continues to prove to have fast scanning and detection while minimizing performance impact. ESET s endpoint security products are designed to conserve resources in memory and on disk which reduces the bloating that irritates most users. Key Performance Drivers for ESET Factor 1: Strengthening Customer Value In 2010, ESET launched Cybersecurity for Mac and ESET Mobile Security for smart phone products. ESET s Cybersecurity for Mac leverages their ThreatSense engine to protect against threats and malicious attacks from both Windows and Mac threats and is available for both consumer and business users. ESET Cybersecurity for Mac goes beyond just offering another anti-malware product by providing Mac customers access to online training around cybercrime and malicious attacks out in the Internet. Mac users typically assume that Mac computers are inherently safer computers, but as more users purchase Macs, Frost & Sullivan s analysis shows that cybercriminals increase their attack tactics against the Mac OS. Educating consumers and businesses that the Mac OS is not immune to attacks is increasingly important in spreading and marketing the Mac security products. ESET's approach is to make sure users know that the best internet security is a combination of good technology embodied in their products together with informed consumer behavior. 2011 Frost & Sullivan 4 We Accelerate Growth
Factor 2: The Product Portfolio ESET s flagship consumer security solutions are the ESET Smart Security 4 and NOD32 Antivirus 4. The key difference being that ESET Smart Security 4 includes antispam and firewall. ESET NOD32 utilizes a smart scanner which inspects SSL-encrypted communication channels such as HTTPS and POP3S. Email scanning, removable media security, system tools are also included. ESET Smart Security 4 combines antivirus and antispyware to detect and disable viruses, trojans, worms, adware, spyware, phishing, rootkits and other Internet threats. Frost & Sullivan feels that ESET Smart Security is a comprehensive solution with an antispam module and a personal firewall to block hacker attacks for home users. Both solutions use the ThreatSense engine, which uses predictive heuristics to identify novel threats quickly without tying up system and network resources. For business users, ESET s NOD32 4 and Smart Security 4 can be managed by ESET s Remote Administrator 4. Remote Administrator offers capabilities such as the ability for admins to quickly manage scans provide client configurations, update signatures databases, generate reports and manage solutions from various platforms such as Linux, Mac Windows, and mobile devices. Version 4 key features also include intelligent group management, aggregation of firewall rules, better policy management, and remote installation. In 2010, ESET also launched Mobile Security for Smartphones which offers protection for mobile devices against the newest threats. ESET Mobile Security includes the same level of protection offered for personal computers with expanded protections specifically designed for mobile devices. The solution offers features such as remote wipe, on-access and demand scanning, firewall, SMS/MMS spam, and password protection. The footprint for this solution is specifically designed not to impact device performance. Factor 3: Securing Our ecity Initiative Along with offering comprehensive endpoint security products, ESET has taken the lead to educate users on how to protect their computer from cyber threats and have a safer online experience. In 2008, ESET recognized the need to not only just sell software security to users, but to also educate them about how to defend themselves against a potential cyber threat and how to have a safer online experience. Securing Our ecity was an initiative created in San Diego, ESET s North America headquarters. It is a proactive movement created to reach out to local business and civic organizations and teach their staff the potential threats that are prevalent within the cyber world. In January 2010, various stakeholders joined together at the San Diego State University Alumni Center and made an agreement to help San Diego become a cyber safe city. Securing our ecity now has hundreds of businesses, as well as, government, education, police, firefighter and military personnel taking part in a variety of workshops to understand the how to keep their business, organizations and personal computing lives safer. In July of 2010, Securing Our ecity was awarded the Best Local/Community Security Challenge award from the Department of Homeland Security. As a result of ESET s strong impact on 2011 Frost & Sullivan 5 We Accelerate Growth
this initiative, Frost & Sullivan firmly believes that not only is ESET developing value in its products through technology and software development, but they are also focusing on truly educating users about the threats in the cyber world, creating a valuable learning experience for them. Conclusion The endpoint security market remains a competitive, mature market and vendors are challenged by the need to implement technologies that provide protection from the advanced threats. In addition to implementing enhanced functionality, vendors are learning creative ways to diversify channel and market strategies to optimize growth within the endpoint security market. ESET offers a high performance, proactive endpoint security solution and goes above and beyond the competition to add value to its products by educating Mac and PC users on how to defend themselves against the latest cybercrime threats. Frost & Sullivan feels ESET illustrates strong initiative and interest in its fight against cyber threats of today. By providing high value to its customers, Frost & Sullivan expects that the company will continue to maintain a strong presence in the endpoint security market. Frost & Sullivan is proud to announce ESET with the 2011 global endpoint security Customer Value Enhancement of the Year Award. The CEO 360 Degree Perspective TM - Visionary Platform for Growth Strategies The CEO 360 Degree Perspective model provides a clear illustration of the complex business universe in which CEOs and their management teams live today. It represents the foundation of Frost & Sullivan's global research organization and provides the basis on which companies can gain a visionary and strategic understanding of the market. The CEO 360 Degree Perspective is also a must-have requirement for the identification and analysis of best-practice performance by industry leaders. The CEO 360 Degree Perspective model enables our clients to gain a comprehensive, action-oriented understanding of market evolution and its implications for their companies growth strategies. As illustrated in Chart 5 below, the following six-step process outlines how our researchers and consultants embed the CEO 360 Degree Perspective into their analyses and recommendations. 2011 Frost & Sullivan 6 We Accelerate Growth
Chart 2: CEO's 360 Degree Perspective Model Critical Importance of TEAM Research Frost & Sullivan s TEAM Research methodology represents the analytical rigor of our research process. It offers a 360 degree view of industry challenges, trends, and issues by integrating all seven of Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies. Our experience has shown over the years that companies too often make important growth decisions based on a narrow understanding of their environment, leading to errors of both omission and commission. Frost & Sullivan contends that successful growth strategies are founded on a thorough understanding of market, technical, economic, financial, customer, best practices, and demographic analyses. In that vein, the letters T, E, A and M reflect our core technical, economic, applied (financial and best practices) and market analyses. The integration of these research disciplines into the TEAM Research methodology provides an 2011 Frost & Sullivan 7 We Accelerate Growth
evaluation platform for benchmarking industry players and for creating high-potential growth strategies for our clients. Chart 3: Benchmarking Performance with TEAM Research About ESET ESET is on the forefront of security innovation, delivering trusted protection to make the Internet safer for businesses and consumers. IDC has recognized ESET as a top five corporate anti-malware vendor and one of the fastest growing companies in its category. Trusted by millions of users worldwide, ESET is one of the most recommended security solutions in the world. ESET NOD32 Antivirus consistently achieves the highest accolades in all types of comparative testing, and powers the virus and spyware detection in ESET Smart Security and ESET Cybersecurity for Mac. Sold in more than 180 countries, ESET s global headquarters is in Bratislava, Slovakia, with distribution headquarters for North America located in San Diego, California. ESET also has offices in Buenos Aires, Prague, Krakow and Singapore and is represented by an extensive global partner network. For more information, visit http://www.eset.com/ or call +1 (619) 876-5400. About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com. 2011 Frost & Sullivan 8 We Accelerate Growth