Tesco to sell budget AV product

UK supermarket giant enters software market.

The UK’s largest supermarket chain,

Tesco

, has announced plans to sell and support its own-brand range of low-budget software products, including an office suite and ‘two security/anti-virus products’.

The products will be offered at less than £20 (around $37 US), undercutting their rivals in many sectors, particularly the office suite, although it is not clear yet how licensing and updates for the security products will be handled. They also plan to offer ‘support and websites to rival the big, existing companies such as

Microsoft

,

Symantec

and

McAfee

‘.

The retail giant, one of the five largest worldwide, has over 1,800 stores in the UK, with almost 1,000 more worldwide, and plans to expand to the US West Coast soon. The company has a well established web presence, and has broadened its product lines away from food in recent years to include clothing, books, DVDs and computer games, electrical goods and homewares, as well as offering insurance, banking and Internet services. The new software line will support a move into computer hardware sales.

Little information has yet been forthcoming regarding the AV and security software, but it may be relevant that

Formjet PLC

, who will be supplying the range and the supporting websites and services, is a prominent reseller of

Panda Software

‘s products. The

TescoSoftware

website will be

here

.

Posted on 04 October 2006 by

Virus Bulletin