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I started working with A-Squared (Emsisoft) a few weeks ago to try to boost their presence in the US market.
A-Squared and Malwarebytes are both small companies with the same business model. That makes us competitors, which is a good thing-- it drives improvement. Both companies release scan-on-demand software, with the hope that people will upgrade to, in our case, a multi-faceted, top-quality paid version.
Since I frequent the windows fixit forums like this one in my line of work (home and SOHO tech support), I have come to believe that the meteoric rise of Malwarebytes (look at the CNet dowload stats) has been fueled by the attention they have paid to forums like techguy. Then when virus-stricken folks google on their problem, it leads them to many posts with mbam recommendations from expert advisors. That's different than in Germany, A-Squared's biggest market, where people pay more astute attention to head-on-head anti-virus detection rates and then make their choice. A-Squared creams all the competition in that respect, when they are included in reviews (look at the website for particulars). Unfortunately in the US market, who gets reviewed is a matter of money and influence. And most people here probably don't pay as much attention to detection rates, anyway. They often just used what's preloaded on their computer, until it fails them. Then they find you and mbam.
As very technically sharp developers who believe in the "if you build it, they wil come" philosophy, it has puzzled our people that the US market doesn't see a-squared's technical advancement, and has so readily embraced Malwarebyte (which they see as a less capable product).
Let me be frank. A-Squared is not a marketing-driven company. That's a problem. 95% off the staff are developers, who don't believe in designing what they think of as "fluff" into the product. E.g. Norton 360's hold-them-by-the-hand approach. I have tried to make the case that this very market in the US of casual to intermediate users is the place where growth will take place, and that the company needs to ask people what they want, and then develop product. My advocacy of this market-driven approach has been listened to but not well-received yet.
In the same spirit of frankness, A-Squared is a very good product. The developers are baffled by mbam's rise because of the weaknesses they see in the competitor:: a small data base of virus signatures vs. 3+ million, once-per-day updates vs. several times in a 24 hour period, no behavioral analysis module in the paid version, too much "schmoozing" (in their tech-centered opinions), not enough development horsepower, and I could go on. Just today, the ceo of Emsisoft sent me the following:
"We found that mbam uses a filename whitelist to
exclude some good programs from detection (their type of false positive filtering). This is completely crazy, because all you have to do is rename a malware file to one of those 'safe' names and mbam will not detect it anymore. Some of them are:
taskswitch.exe
igfxpers.exe
TDSSmabm.dll
_gotomypc.exe
gotomypc.exe_
ASCIIcatUninst.EXE
FahCore_78.exe
and many more..
This clearly proves to me that the mbam designers are not only just pandering to the online community, they are also just beginners in software development who make
people believe that they're experts." Wow! Pretty scathingly delivered, if you ask me. I think a little humility and pandering is in order. What do people need? Then the product can stand on its own.
To be completely transparent with you, A-Squared does not need to focus on Malwarebytes, except to gain clues to establishing wider usage for our own product, which can then stand on its own, and whose marketing in the US has been flat ignored. I believe I need to talk with techs like you about your nearly exclusive recommendation of mbam on the forums and see if A-Squared's very positive capabilities can get something like equal time here to allow the competition to sort things out.
So, I'm asking you and your very esteemed colleagues (I admired your dedication, ever since my first encounter with Rollin' Rog): would you please occasionally use A-Squared as an alternative to mbam and get a feel for yourself as to it's excellent detection and removal capabilities? It won't be hard to work with the log files. I believe that if you do this, you will find it stands above mbam in its detection rates and usefulness. If there is something you don't like about it, we will be very thankful to get feedback from people of your caliber and make adjustments.
Healthy competition is good, and this is not a static market. Give it a try will you? I'll be very interested in your results and am in a position to pass feedback directly to the ceo in Austria and our virtual team of developers around the world.
A-Squared and Malwarebytes are both small companies with the same business model. That makes us competitors, which is a good thing-- it drives improvement. Both companies release scan-on-demand software, with the hope that people will upgrade to, in our case, a multi-faceted, top-quality paid version.
Since I frequent the windows fixit forums like this one in my line of work (home and SOHO tech support), I have come to believe that the meteoric rise of Malwarebytes (look at the CNet dowload stats) has been fueled by the attention they have paid to forums like techguy. Then when virus-stricken folks google on their problem, it leads them to many posts with mbam recommendations from expert advisors. That's different than in Germany, A-Squared's biggest market, where people pay more astute attention to head-on-head anti-virus detection rates and then make their choice. A-Squared creams all the competition in that respect, when they are included in reviews (look at the website for particulars). Unfortunately in the US market, who gets reviewed is a matter of money and influence. And most people here probably don't pay as much attention to detection rates, anyway. They often just used what's preloaded on their computer, until it fails them. Then they find you and mbam.
As very technically sharp developers who believe in the "if you build it, they wil come" philosophy, it has puzzled our people that the US market doesn't see a-squared's technical advancement, and has so readily embraced Malwarebyte (which they see as a less capable product).
Let me be frank. A-Squared is not a marketing-driven company. That's a problem. 95% off the staff are developers, who don't believe in designing what they think of as "fluff" into the product. E.g. Norton 360's hold-them-by-the-hand approach. I have tried to make the case that this very market in the US of casual to intermediate users is the place where growth will take place, and that the company needs to ask people what they want, and then develop product. My advocacy of this market-driven approach has been listened to but not well-received yet.
In the same spirit of frankness, A-Squared is a very good product. The developers are baffled by mbam's rise because of the weaknesses they see in the competitor:: a small data base of virus signatures vs. 3+ million, once-per-day updates vs. several times in a 24 hour period, no behavioral analysis module in the paid version, too much "schmoozing" (in their tech-centered opinions), not enough development horsepower, and I could go on. Just today, the ceo of Emsisoft sent me the following:
"We found that mbam uses a filename whitelist to
exclude some good programs from detection (their type of false positive filtering). This is completely crazy, because all you have to do is rename a malware file to one of those 'safe' names and mbam will not detect it anymore. Some of them are:
taskswitch.exe
igfxpers.exe
TDSSmabm.dll
_gotomypc.exe
gotomypc.exe_
ASCIIcatUninst.EXE
FahCore_78.exe
and many more..
This clearly proves to me that the mbam designers are not only just pandering to the online community, they are also just beginners in software development who make
people believe that they're experts." Wow! Pretty scathingly delivered, if you ask me. I think a little humility and pandering is in order. What do people need? Then the product can stand on its own.
To be completely transparent with you, A-Squared does not need to focus on Malwarebytes, except to gain clues to establishing wider usage for our own product, which can then stand on its own, and whose marketing in the US has been flat ignored. I believe I need to talk with techs like you about your nearly exclusive recommendation of mbam on the forums and see if A-Squared's very positive capabilities can get something like equal time here to allow the competition to sort things out.
So, I'm asking you and your very esteemed colleagues (I admired your dedication, ever since my first encounter with Rollin' Rog): would you please occasionally use A-Squared as an alternative to mbam and get a feel for yourself as to it's excellent detection and removal capabilities? It won't be hard to work with the log files. I believe that if you do this, you will find it stands above mbam in its detection rates and usefulness. If there is something you don't like about it, we will be very thankful to get feedback from people of your caliber and make adjustments.
Healthy competition is good, and this is not a static market. Give it a try will you? I'll be very interested in your results and am in a position to pass feedback directly to the ceo in Austria and our virtual team of developers around the world.
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