David Ellis said:
Has anyone else noticed CA wants you to download the so-called "free"
evaluation without specifying on their web pages the length of the
evaluation period and the price you'll be charged when it ends?
Apparently CA thinks our labor cost is zero.
--David
It was free. You never provided a credit card to them because IT WAS
FREE. So how are they going to charge you after the 1-year subscription
ends? The order form (
http://snipurl.com/c3zr) doesn't even have any
fields where you can specify a payment source. You thought they might
be sending out Bruno and Max to break your legs unless you pay to renew?
If you haven't noticed, most anti-virus software is sold under the
1-year subscription pricing scheme: you get 1 year for the subscription
and thereafter you don't get any more virus updates and might not even
get any program updates. Right at the top of the order form it says,
"Enter your information below to receive your FREE 1 year trial of
eTrust EZ Armor LE." Free, 1 year trial, no credit card or bank info
submitted. Getting on track yet? It is a no-charge 1-year subscription
in cooperation as a partner with Microsoft. The trial ends 1 year after
you install it. You got 1 year free, then you'll have to pay for it or
find another freebie.
http://www3.ca.com/press/PressRelease.asp?CID=64025
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/nov03/11-18protectyourpcpr.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/partnerpack/
Microsoft is planning on it own anti-virus solution. They bought
GeCAD's RAV product (
http://www.techweb.com/wire/26801576). In less
than a year, Microsoft will be proffering their own AV product and won't
need the CA EzAntivirus offering (but CA is probably hoping that enough
of the 1-year trialers will stick with EzAntivirus). For Microsoft, the
1-year trial of CA's EzAntivirus is a bandaid until they get out their
own AV product, just like their purchase of Giant's AntiSpyware product
is a bandaid until they get out their next version of Internet Explorer
("[Microsoft] has to protect IE now, since any anti-spyware improvements
to IE won't show until Windows XP SP3 is released, which won't be until
the second half of 2005"; see
http://snipurl.com/bu34).
