Trend Micro has re-designed OfficeScan to be able to perform a virus-signature check against what's called the SmartScan Server, which would contain the signature database. It would be located inside the corporate network. Alternately, the scanning could also be provided through Trend Micro's Internet-based cloud service. Both entail removing a portion of the signature database off the user's desktop.

Trend Micro says no file leaves the endpoint in the scanning process. But the downside to this cloud-scanning concept, Glessner and Clarkson acknowledge, is that the cloud-based antivirus protection would become unavailable if an endpoint loses a connection or is cut off from the Internet.

However, OfficeScan 10.0 will be designed so that IT managers can choose to use the conventional method of signature-based scanning on the desktop or the alternate cloud-based method, which Trend Micro calls "file reputation."

Trend Micro is providing this choice because "we think customers will need time to evaluate and get used to this," Glessner says.

OfficeScan 10.0, expected out in mid-May, will be priced at about $20 per user based on 1001 endpoints and up.