Trend Micro steps up marketing for U.S. consumers

CUPERTINO, California: Security software maker Trend Micro Inc. said it would step up marketing efforts to sell U.S. consumers its software protection against e-mail-borne viruses and home computer break-ins.

The new anti-virus software, PC-cillin 2003, sells well among consumers in Trend Micro's home country of Japan under a different product name but has not caught on with users in the United States, Trend Micro said. "If we can make it into number one in Japan, why can't we do it here?", said Annie Chen, Trend Micro's product marketing manager.

Trend Micro's new software fends off attempts to break into personal computers, catches viruses attached to incoming e-mail and monitors data for any malicious software. A new feature in PC-cillin 2003 is a pre-emptive warning generated by the software when an a widespread outbreak of a particularly harmful virus makes the rounds over the Internet.

Trend Micro, based in both Japan and the US, has a wide customer base among businesses but has not been considered a major player in consumer protection software, a market dominated by names such as Symantec Corp.'s Norton Internet Security, Network Associates Inc.’s McAfee Internet Security and Sygate Technologies Inc.

"We launched a very aggressive branding campaign and advertisements in key magazines," said Chen, adding that Sony Corp. began including Trend Micro software with all of its VAIO desktop and notebook computers from earlier this year.

© Reuters