Eset Readies Mobile Security Software for Some Smartphone Operating Systems

I must begin with a confession: It’s been awhile since I sat down with Eset CEO Anton Zajac to get an update on the privately held IT security and anti-virus software developer based in Bratislava, Slovakia, and San Diego.

While the company’s security software products are well-known in Europe, Eset is not as well-recognized in the United States; I described Eset last year as “the fastest growing anti-virus software developer you’ve never heard of.” Zajac said that while 2009 proved to be more difficult than expected, Eset still managed to grow its sales about 15 percent over 2008. “The good news is that this year it is basically double 2009,” Zajac said, meaning sales growth in North America has been running at better than 30 percent—and higher in Latin America and Asia and Pacific markets. The security software developer has more than 500 employees worldwide, including roughly 180 in San Diego.

What prompted me to return to my notes, though, was the $7.7 billion acquisition of McAfee that Intel announced two weeks ago. By most accounts, Intel’s McAfee deal is all about bringing computer security into the future of Internet-connected smartphones and other mobile devices. (It’s a significant development in the wireless technology industry, where San Diego-based Qualcomm plays a prominent role—especially after Intel followed its McAfee deal with its $1.4 billion purchase of Infineon Technologies’ wireless chip business earlier this week. And lest we forget, Intel paid $884 million last year to buy Wind River Systems, the Alameda, CA-based embedded-software developer.)

During our conversation, Zajac told me Eset also has been moving to develop security software for smartphones, saying, “Increasingly, as the use of smartphones becomes more prevalent, the [malicious] attacks will target mobile devices.”

Eset has been working to update its existing mobile security software for Microsoft Windows Phone 7. The company also is on the verge of introducing new security software for the Symbian OS, which had almost 47 percent of the smartphone operating system market globally in 2009, according to Gartner.

“We have a huge market share in Spain, and Symbian is the domininant mobile platform there,” Zajac explained.

“When you have a smartphone, regardless of the platform, your entire life is in the palm of your hand,” Zajac said. A knowledgeable hacker can

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.