BANGALORE, INDIA: Quick Heal Technologies, a leading provider of Anti-Virus and Internet Security tools, has been the leader in Anti-Virus Technology in India. Founded in 1993 as Cat Computer Services Pvt. Ltd., was renamed as Quick Heal Technologies Ltd., in 2006 to align the company’s branding with its products thus catering to the demand of highly reliable anti-virus software, which would successfully tackle the growing number of virus problems.

Quick Heal, which has actively involved in R&D of anti-virus software, is serving more than million users worldwide. Quick Heal, an award-winning anti-virus product, is installed in corporate, small business and consumers' homes, protecting their PCs from viruses and other malicious threats.

Kailash Katkar, Founder and CEO of Quick Heal Technologies, talks to CIOL about the company’s growth, future plans and products to be rolled out. Excerpts:
 
CIOL: Tell us about Quick Heal’s presence in the market and its growth over the years?
Kailash Katkar: Quick Heal Technologies mainly caters to small office home office (SOHO) and small and medium enterprises (SME) segment. However, we have also been focusing on the enterprise segment with our enterprise products since the last two quarters.

The company has growing at nearly 100 per cent growth year-on-year for the last four years and expect to see the same growth this year too. We have sold around 4.6 lakh licenses last financial year as against 2.1 lakh licenses the previous year.

CIOL: What products do Quick Heal offer home users and SMBs?
KK: We have two products for home users and SMBs, Quick Heal Antivirus Plus and Quick Heal Total Security.  We also have a basic AV product QH Guardian for cost conscious low-end home user. The Antivirus plus comes with four-in-one protection, antivirus, antispyware, anti rootkit and firewall.

Total security is a nine-in-one protection: Antivirus, Antispyware, Firewall, Antiphishing, AntiSpam, Data theft protection, Privacy protection, Anti rootkit, PC2Mobile scan.

CIOL: Any new products in the pipeline for SMBs?
KK: We will be launching our 2009 series very soon, mostly in November, with added benefits for our users. We will offer an additional Anti Malware protection feature, which will take care of spywares, roguewares, riskwares etc. We shall also be launching our Adminconsole IV for the SMBs having five or more machines; this will enable centralized management of desktop security within the organization.

CIOL: Tell us about the Virus Bulletin Award?
KK: Quick Heal still remains the only Indian AntiVirus using indigenous AntiVirus engine to achieve the Virus Bulletin Award, the most prestigious award in the Anti-Virus industry.  The company has received the prestigious VB 100 percent award, on all platforms (Windows, Novell, Linux, XP, 2000, 2003, Vista etc.) It is the only Anti-Virus software from Asia to get VB 100% certification for its Linux based Anti- Virus.

QuickHeal has also been recognized by Microsoft as a Security/Anti-Virus partner offering Antivirus Quick Heal to the Genuine Microsoft Windows users at a discounted price under Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage.
 
CIOL: In your view, are Indian SMBs more open to adopting newer and robust technologies?
KK: These days with so much of publicity for cyber security, Indian SMBs have become more knowledgeable. They are to some extent open to adopt newer technologies.
 
CIOL: Which are the top technologies being adopted by Indian SMBs?
KK: We are seeing the mindset of SMBs shifting towards having a secured Network at least at the desktop level, which is a good sign. Since we are in the security domain it provides us good business. We are also observing that the SMBs are now using ERP solutions and other applications to enhance their productivity and cost cutting.

We also understand that Indian SMBs do not have a dedicated EDP pro. So, service and support is what is giving us an edge and we are known for our least turn around time when it comes to service support.