Symantec Corp. announced the Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds line of consumer and enterprise solutions. The product line will include three versions of Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds - Annual Service Edition, Corporate Edition and Corporate Edition with Event and Configuration Manager. All three products are scheduled to be available for purchase in early September.

"As handheld devices are used in more homes and corporations, they make an increasingly attractive target platform for viruses and malicious code. Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds protects these devices which, in turn, strengthens overall home and enterprise security." ," said Steve Cullen, senior vice president of Consumer and Client Product Delivery at Symantec.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds -- Corporate Edition will include specific functionality for enterprise environments. Users will be able to schedule scans to run daily, weekly, monthly, or on a specified date or to schedule scans in conjunction with desktop synchronizations. In addition, it will enable users who attach more than one handheld device to their PC to monitor those devices from the desktop.


To streamline the distribution of virus definition updates, virus definition packages for Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds -- Corporate Edition will be seamlessly integrated with those of Symantec's corporate desktop antivirus solutions. Desktops with Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds -- Corporate Edition, in turn, will automatically pass only relevant virus definitions to the handheld device upon synchronization.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds -- Corporate Edition with Event and Configuration Manager will feature additional functionality for centralized logging, alerting, and reporting. With this product, the IT staff will be able to graphically view the status of all handhelds, make configuration changes, and enforce policies -- all from a centralized console.

Status, configuration, and event information about the handheld environment will be collected at the desktop and reported to the management console. From there, it will be consolidated and presented to administrators. Administrators at the console will also be able to push configuration changes to all handhelds in the enterprise, regardless of location.