Symantec Offers New Suite Deal

Symantec this week plans to introduce a way for solution providers to quickly outfit customers with a comprehensive suite of IT life-cycle management tools.

The Symantec LiveState Client Management Suite packages seven modular software products, three of which—LiveState Designer, pcAnywhere for Symantec LiveState and a trial version of LiveState Recovery Desktop—are included at no cost, said Thom Bailey, director of product management at Symantec, Cupertino, Calif.

The other four modules in the suite—LiveState Delivery, LiveState Delivery Enterprise Manager, Live-State Patch Manager and Symantec Discovery—provide tools for basic software delivery, advanced software delivery, patch scanning and installation, and IT asset auditing, respectively. Purchased as a suite, these four products cost less than if bought a la carte, Bailey said.

The LiveState Client Management Suite starts at slightly less than $300 per 10-seat license, he said.

LiveState Designer, a wizard-driven tool for customizing deployable software packages, and pcAnywhere, a remote-control tool for Windows and Linux clients, are both free products engineered for use with the suite. LiveState Recovery Desktop allows users to test-drive Symantec's PC disaster-recovery technology free of charge for 30 days, said Bailey.

Symantec has maintained a separate interface for each product. "We have chosen to still keep a modular console for each product for individual IT administrators who may be doing dedicated work," Bailey said.

The suite also includes integrated links within the product interfaces that help solution providers upsell customers into Symantec's line of security products, Bailey said.

Symantec is best known for its security products, not its IT management tools, so the convenience of the LiveState suite should help the vendor get more traction against established IT management competitors such as Computer Associates International, said Abe Fisher, vice president of Setauket Computer Technology, South Jamesport, N.Y.

"The suite should have most appeal to midsize companies," Fisher said.