Symantec ratchets up Norton renewal prices
Symantec last week quietly raised the price of annual renewals for its consumer and small business line of security products by as much as 33 percent, saying that it was part of a long-considered move toward a subscription-based business model, and not a reaction to Microsoft’s recent entry into the security space.
As of Monday, renewals for Symantec’s popular Norton AntiVirus and Norton SystemWorks jumped to US$30, up 20 percent from 2004’s $25; annual subscription renewals to Norton Personal Firewall and the Norton Internet Security suite, meanwhile, climbed 33 percent to US$20 and US$40, respectively.
Symantec has charged existing users renewal fees for years to pay for minor software updates, new anti-virus signatures, and intrusion detection definitions to protect users against new worms, viruses, Trojans, adware, and spyware. These price hikes, however, are among the largest ever.
They also highlight the rapid rise in security maintenance costs for home and small business users. As recently as 2001, for instance, Symantec charged just US$4 for an annual renewal to Norton AntiVirus; that translates into a 750 percent in five years.