Trend Micro

By Sujendro

Trend Micro Inc.  is a computer security company. It is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and markets Trend Micro Internet Security, Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security, OfficeScan, and other related security products and services. Eva Chen has been CEO for the company since 2005 succeeding Steve Chang, who is now Chairman.

History

Foundation

The company was founded in 1988 in Los Angeles by Steve Chang (Chang Ming-cheng), his wife, Jenny Chang, and her sister, Eva Chen. Shortly after establishing the company, its founders moved headquarters to Taipei.

In 1992, Trend Micro took over a Japanese software firm to form Trend Micro Devices and established headquarters in Japan. It then made an agreement with CPU maker Intel under which it produced an anti-virus product for local area networks (LANs) for sale under Intel’s name. Intel paid royalties to Trend for sales of LANDesk Virus Protect in the United States and Europe, while Trend paid royalties to Intel for sales in Asia. In 1993, Novell began bundling the product with its network operating system. In 1996 the two companies agreed to a two-year continuation of the agreement in which Trend was allowed to globally market the ServerProtect product under its own brand alongside Intel’s LANDesk brand.

Products

Consumer products

In 1990, Trend Micro launched its first product, PC-cillin, an anti-virus program for consumers. In 1993 it was launched in Japan as VirusBuster.

The 2010 Trend Micro consumer products include Trend Micro Internet Security Pro, Trend Micro Internet Security, Trend Micro Antivirus + Antispyware and the 2011 range of products are Titanium Internet Security, Titanium Maximum Security and Titanium Seurity for Netbooks as well as Trend Micro SafeSync and Online Guardian. The company also offers a variety of free tools to diagnose and mitigate security issues including HouseCall, CWShredder, Smart Surfing for the iPhone, RUBotted, Rootkit Buster]] and HijackThis.

There are also various versions for mobile devices, including Trend Micro Titanium Tablet Security for Android.

Small business products

Trend Micro offers Worry-Free Business Security and InterScan Messaging Hosted Security for small businesses.

Enterprise products

The 2010 Trend Micro Enterprise products include OfficeScan, InterScan Web Security, InterScan Messaging Security, and Deep Security. Trend Micro acquired the OSSEC project along with its acquisition of Third Brigade, and has promised[5] to keep it open source and free.

Technologies

In June 2008, Trend Micro introduced Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, a cloud-client content security infrastructure designed to protect customers from web threats, such as data stealing malware. This combines in-the-cloud technologies with other client-based AV technologies to reduce dependency on conventional pattern file downloads on the endpoint. AVTest.org results from December 2009 testing show Trend Micro Office Scan ahead of the competition.[7]

Mergers and acquisitions

  • In May 2005: Trend Micro acquired InterMute Inc., a developer of anti-spyware products.
  • In June 2005: Acquired Kelkea Inc; an IP filtering and reputation company.
  • In February 2007: Acquired HijackThis, an antispyware program from Merijn
  • On October 25, 2007: Acquired Provilla, Inc; a provider of data loss prevention solutions.
  • On February 25, 2008: Acquired Identum Ltd; a provider of ID-based cryptography (IBE)
  • On April 29, 2009: Acquired Third Brigade; a provider of intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS) systems.
  • On June 10, 2010: Acquired humyo; an online storage and data synchronization company, based in Leeds, UK
  • On November 29, 2010: Acquired Mobile Armor; an innovative encryption specialist based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Patent Lawsuits

Trend Micro is suing Barracuda Networks for the latter’s distribution of ClamAV as part of a security package. Trend Micro claims that Barracuda’s use of ClamAV infringes on a software patent for filtering viruses on an Internet gateway. The free software community has responded in part by calling for a boycott of Trend Micro. The boycott is backed by the Free Software Foundation.

References

  1. “2010 Financial Data”. Trend Micro. 2011-02-17.
  2. http://us.trendmicro.com/us/about/company/index.html
  3. http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=117&CtNode=1354
  4. http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=117&CtNode=1354
  5. “Trend Micro to Acquire Third Brigade”
  6. Stefanie Hoffman. “Trend Micro Releases New ‘Smart Protection Network'”
  7. http://us.trendmicro.com/us/trendwatch/core-technologies/competitive-benchmarks/avtest/index.html
  8. “Trend Micro press release announcing Intermute acquisition”
  9. Trend Micro press release announcing Kelkea acquisition
  10. Everett, Cath (2005-06-15) Trend Micro tackles spam with Kelkea buy ZDNet
  11. Trend Micro acquires HijackThis antispyware tool CNET
  12. Trend Micro to Snap Up Provilla for DLP eWeek
  13. “Trend Micro press release announcing acquisition of Identum”
  14. “Crypto vendor Identum bought by Trend Micro”.
  15. “Trend Micro Accelerates Dynamic Datacenter Security Strategy with Acquisition of Third Brigade”.
  16. Trend Micro to Buy Cloud Storage Provider Humyo CNET
  17. Mobile Armor to be acquired by Trend Micro for expanded data protection Trend Micro Inc.
  18. “Trend Micro patent claim provokes FOSS community, leads to boycott”. Linux.com. 2008-02-11. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  19. “Boycott Trend Micro”. Free Software Foundation. 2008-02-11. Retrieved 2008-02-12.

Official website Trend Micro

From Wikipedia