Symantec Corporation senior director, Endpoint Security, Asia Pacific & Japan, David Hanley said: "In an economically-distressed time we're in a good position to offer cost-effective systems management in Altiris Client Management Suite 7.0 and Altiris Server Management Suite 7.0."

"Both suites offer better visibility into a company's IT assets and simplifies day-to-day manageability. This is a revolutionary step forward for us," said Hanley. "The first generation consisted of point tools, then integration as the second step. In the new generation we focus on collaboration with process automation and intelligent software management."

"The absolute proliferation of data across the world's networks is becoming unimaginable and grows exponentially day by day," he said. "The ability to manage this avalanche of data also comes with huge risks in external and internal threats."

Companies should take opportunity

"According to research firm Gartner's March 2008 numbers: the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a desktop PC is US$3,471, compared with the TCO--US$5,867--of an unmanaged computer," said Hanley.