Our team team hit a big milestone this week by reaching beta of our 2009 Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus products. As many of you know, beta is a pre-release version of a Symantec product that is available for public testing before the final version is released. We rely on the valuable feedback of our community to evaluate how the product performs in "real world" environments. Additionally, it is an opportunity to be among the first to experience our latest products before they are finalized and released. We monitor the beta feedback closely and it is an important source of finding bugs as well as capturing new enhancement and feature ideas.

We're extremely proud of this new version and we've been out talking to some of the media about the many enhancements in the new products, particularly in the area of performance. The Norton 2009 products have been designed with a “zero-impact” performance goal, supported by more than 300 improvements that span nearly every aspect of the product, from the scanning engines to the user interface. We're looking forward to your feedback, so if you'd like to take us up on the offer, you can download the 2009 beta products here. More detail on the beta can be found here .

Happy testing!

Dave