Feature

Life In The Fast Lane: The Making of Norton’s 2009 Products

Life in the software industry comes with certain expectations: frequent new version introductions, a continuous upgrade roadmap, and ever-expanding feature sets aimed at outpacing competitors.

print this page

And then sometimes there’s an opportunity for true innovation.

The development of Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton AntiVirus 2009 began with loftier goals than incremental change; it began with the premise that it’s not enough to stay ahead of competitors, or even to stay ahead of hackers; you have to stay ahead of consumers.

As these new Norton products make their debut, Norton Today offers this glimpse into how, why, and what they came to be.

The Inspiration

“We started by talking to consumers,” says Rowan Trollope, Symantec’s Senior Vice President of Consumer Products. “We could have limited that to friends and family and come to the same conclusion – the way people use computers has fundamentally changed, and its made performance the absolute number one issue.” To hear more from Rowan Trollope on the 2009 product development, listen to Norton '09 product podcast.

Computers are now the primary entertainment and social medium in many households. 69% of Americans consider their computer a more significant source of entertainment than their TV, and this percentage is growing¹. Viewed in that light, consumer tolerance for interruptions or slow performance in their computers is zero. In fact, performance is the number one reason people switch security software brands².

“People are tired of security software that slows down their computer,” says Trollope. "So our goal was to create the fastest security product in the world, hands down."

The challenge was to re-engineer Norton products for radically improved performance, without compromising security features.

The Process

The development effort went far beyond simply optimizing code from a previous version. More than 500 engineers around the world worked on the project over the course of 2+ years, rebuilding key elements from the ground up, right down to a new one-click installer that takes less than a minute. The total effort entailed more than 500,000 man hours.

Every line of code, every byte of memory, every millisecond, and every user interaction was fair game for a total re-think.

"We’ve always been focused on performance," says Jody Gibney, Senior Product Manager. "But because of the changing way people are using their PCs and because of their demanding expectations, it wasn’t enough to be a great-performing security product anymore. We had to be a great performing product, period."

The Features

The Norton 2009 products were designed with a "zero-impact" performance goal, supported by more than 300 improvements that span nearly every aspect of the product, from the scanning engines to the user interface.

A key supporting innovation is a new technology called Norton Insight that reduces the need to scan files in the first place. Leveraging data from millions of Norton Community members, Norton Insight allows the Norton security products to avoid scanning any files that are commonly found on most computers and statistically determined to be trusted, for faster, fewer, shorter scans.

Other new features emerged from a focus on advanced computer users and the growing mainstream of computer gamers:

-- Silent mode -- suspends alerts and updates automatically to avoid interrupting or slowing activities such as games, movies, or presentations.

-- Simplified user interface -- provides easier access to detailed configuration settings and the ability to track detection and performance status.

Meanwhile, Norton 2009 engineers were also tasked with adding security functionality:

-- Norton™ Protection System -- works in concert to stop threats before they impact you. This multilayered protection system includes Browser Protection against complex Web-based attacks, real-time SONAR™ behavioral protection, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), antirootkit, antivirus and antispyware technologies.

-- Norton Identity Safe™ -- keeps your identity and personal information safeguarded when you buy, bank, browse, and game online³

-- Home Networking feature -- allows users to easily view and manage devices on their home network³

-- Botnet protection – helps prevent bots from taking control of your PC

“Another key goal in the development was the importance of transparency,” says Gibney. “If users want to know whether all the new features add up to better performance, they should be able to see for themselves.”

The new user interface provides a window into performance, revealing everything about the program’s behavior at a high level and at deeper levels. The main window includes a CPU meter that lets users see what may be bogging down the system. The few elements of a security suite that people actually want to see are emphasized, while everything else runs in the background, out of the way.

The Results

The beta release, announced on July 15, 2008, has become the most popular in company history. More than 100,000 consumers downloaded the trial version, and many participated in beta user forums, providing valuable input while validating the use of computers as a social medium that helped inspire development.

The beta versions stayed on track to deliver on several key metrics including a one-minute installation, the industry’s fastest protection updates and less than half the memory usage of the next leading competitor.

At launch, independent third-party tests showed Norton Internet Security 2009 demonstrates significantly superior performance in the four key performance pain points for consumers⁴:

Download Speed
Scan Time
User Interface Speed
Memory Footprint

The Next

If product development starts with listening to consumers, Norton products may soon play a broader role in helping people in their quest for better performing technology.

“You’ll start to see us kick off more products that solve problems," concluded Trollope. "First, we’re addressing the number one request in security: better performance. Next, we’re inventing new technology to protect against future malware with 99 percent accuracy. Finally, we’re going to grow our vision in the world and help solve problems. It’s a big shift from just being a security company."

And it’s all happening fast.

Sources:

1: Source: Deloitte, January 2008, “The State of the Media Democracy “ Report

2: Source: NPD Study for Symantec, August 2007

3: Features available in Norton Internet Security 2009 only

4: Passmark study 2009