What's the fuss about the Big or Dwarf Security Companies

I came accross this article from the New York Times sometimes ago http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/technology/business-computing/06virus.html?_r=1
It is basically an article about the “big guys” in the PC security business boasting about how good and how big the antivirus and consumer security business is. A lot of the article talks about the business aspects of working with computer manufacturers (OEMs) in pre-installing consumer security products on new PCs. There is some good stuff (and some stuff that is wrong) in this article about the OEM business and we will brainstorm on it.
But, there is a great quote in the article. The Symantec CEO, Enrique Salem, describes the consumer security/antivirus business as “Symantec and the seven dwarfs”. And the McAfee CFO describes the consumer security business “as like an arms race”.
Clearly Symantec is the largest by far in terms of revenue. Heck, they make more revenue than all other software security providers put together. They probably make more money in a week than most of sofware companies, And of course McAfee is #2 and according to their CFO and CEO in the article is spending a lot of money to try and catch Symantec—hence the arms race quotation. So, in regards to revenue it is clearly Symantec and the seven dwarfs.
But is making money the objective of consumer security? It would seem that the objective should be to protect customers while they are using the internet. We all use the internet in our daily business and we deserve to be confident that nothing nasty will happen while we use the internet. To me it seems the true measure should be how many consumers are secured.
None of the “big guys” publish numbers on the number of paid customers they have. But, we can make some guesses. The above article states that Symantec’s consumer security business is $1.8B and that they are 52% of the market. This means the total market is about $3.5B. So if the big guys make $40/year from each paid customer, that means that these companies secure about 88 million consumers—and Symantec secures about 45 million consumers.
But those are tiny numbers. I have seen estimates that there are about 1 billion computers used by consumers and small businesses. What are the rest using? Why are the “big guys” securing less than 10% of consumers?
The answer is that the “big guys” are not the big guys in terms of securing consumers,likewise none should called dwarf.What should be uppermost in your mind as consumers is whether these internet security companies have your interest at heart, rather than making money from you.Always go for the best security company, concerned about your security welfare.

Catch ya next time - To your online sofware shopping experience,
D cybertycoon, Stevens Adeola Salami see ya