“The owner of the VirusBuster has made the decision that the products and the services are going to be removed from the market from 1 October 2012,” announced the company. But that’s not the end of VirusBuster nor quite the spin from Agnitum. Agnitum is the Russian supplier of the Outpost range of products – and it has acquired the VirusBuster technology.
Agnitum has been using VirusBuster technology in its Outpost products since 2006. “Over the past 6 years,” said Agnitum today, “Agnitum has developed a number of modules that have enhanced the functionality of the VirusBuster Software Development Kit — behavior based detection, on-access, on-demand, speed-up of repeated scans, email and web filtering, and more.” The result of this partnership has been 12 successive VB100 awards.
But, added Agnitum’s managing director Mikhail Zakhryapin, “We have reached the point where we cannot add further enhancements to the antivirus technology in the context of a licensing relationship.” So “we have concluded an agreement with VirusBuster to acquire the exclusive rights to their technology, virus database, and antivirus processes.”
However, regardless of the nature of the negotiations between VirusBuster and Agnitum, the bottom line is that VirusBuster technology will remain within Outpost products; and that further development and research will continue, albeit in St Petersburg, Russia rather than Budapest, Hungary.
The 1 October deadline, however, seems to remain in force. Agnitum is offering to help VirusBuster customers transition to the equivalent Outpost product (with free Outpost until their existing Virus Buster license expires), provided those users “apply for the transition license before October 1.” Those who don’t are likely to find themselves without support on 2 October.