Norton for Mac

[mikeromo]

hi everyone--

I wanted to give you an update about work on NIS 4 and Norton Confidential for Mac. Though we all hoped to have it out this week--and I bent the rules and actually explained the actual date with the caveat that I hated giving dates out because then people would be irritated and angry when we didn't hit that actual date--we have had to push out the schedule a few weeks.  

If you are wondering why--and I would be wondering why--it's frankly due to the vast amount of testing that has to be done. Each feature of each product has to be tested on Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6 on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.  I could use the testing matrix to wallpaper my apartment. (It's not a big apartment, but it has lots of wallspace.)  We're plugging away at it and if we can get the patch out earlier, we will.

I understand how frustrating this is (I had a similar experience with a calendar and contact system that is at least two years late with their major updates) and all I can do is tell you were working as fast as we can. If I have any more updates, I will post to this thread.

In the meantime, NIS users should find that their AV works and firewall functionality is working. We just need to get the privacy tools done.

thanks so much.

mike

mac product manager

mike_romo@symantec.com

[Fuad]

will it support 64bit on Snow 10.6?

[ryan_mcgann]

It depends what you mean by supporting 64 bit. Some of our components will be 64-bit, and some will not be. We are evaluating them on a case-by-case basis. We will also be rolling out 64 bit support in stages.

As Mike said, the testing matrix is huge (I wish I had as much wall space as he does), and adding 64 bit means a whole new platform to test. We just don't have the time to test every feature on 64 bit. However some features will definitely be 64 in the first release, and others will become 64 bit a little bit later, as we have more time to test. It's safe to say though that this release will not be fully 64 bit, but more a patchwork of 64 bit and 32 bit.

Ryan

[jshi84]

Will the new release for the 10.6 be able to remove virus and spyware using software without using the need for your Virus Removal Service? What will we be expecting for a NIS version 5?

James 

[Amiller]

Will our service contracts be extended for the period of time when NIS was not functional, or only partly functional?

[spede1]

This is probably the worst customer service I've seen, hands down.   Nov 17 is almost 3 months after Snow Leopard was released.  Symantec should be ashamed at giving such poor customer service.

They've forever lost 5 subscriptions among me and my friends and family.

[smpis350]

As you can tell by the shear lack of response by Symantec, THEY DON'T GIVE A D*** and DON'T CARE.

There poor attitude to date has been "just deal with it"

Symantec S**KS and is now the WORST customer service around!

You lost one more customer.....but I'm sure you don't care... 

[mikeromo]

Actually, you couldn't be more wrong, we care a lot and regret the delay. We did get NAV out awhile ago, but when you think, again, about all the different features we have to test, under 3 different operating systems, with 2 types of chipsets...well, it takes awhile, especially when we find issues and have to restart the process again.

So, you are wrong, we all do care and are taking steps to make sure this delay never happens again.

-mike

mike_romo@symantec.com

Message Edited by mikeromo on 11-02-2009 07:32 PM

[mikeromo]

hi Amiller--

Please email me at mike_romo@symantec.com and we'll take care of that.

-mike

[ryan_mcgann]

I also think people are looking at this incorrectly. This is NOT a Snow Leopard compatibility update. NIS is already Snow Leopard compatible, with the exception of antiphishing. But if you look, NOBODY else has a Safari plug-in that works on Snow Leopard. We've outlined why before, but in short, Apple does not have any mechanism for doing what we need to do in Snow Leopard. We're working with Apple on this, but it's not resolved in Snow Leopard.

But to re-iterate this is not a Snow Leopard compatibilty update. We already released a Snow Leopard compatible version of NIS back in September. This update is to improve performance and fix some bugs that are out in the field. If you look in our bug database, almost all the issues we are fixing are NOT Snow Leopard related. By and large they are all just "little fixes here and there".

We took the approach of fixing the broken features ASAP, and leaving the other fixes for a November release. We're sorry it's running late, but I don't see why people are comparing this release to the release of Snow Leopard—the two have nothing in common.

Ryan