Droid Defenders

摘要

Symantec has no taste," says 29-year-old entrepreneur John Hering, borrowing an insult Steve Jobs lobbed famously at Microsoft. The shoe fit then, and Hering thinks it fits another foot now. "When you look at their user experience, design, marketing, everything. Their products are oriented around fear." Fear, or the deliverance from it, has always been a huge selling point for antivirus software. But as the computing world shifts from PCs to mobile devices, Lookout has been able to trounce multibillion-dollar security giants like McAfee and Symantec without scaring people. Instead, the startup has wooed users with a slick interface and free features like data backups and find-my-phone tools. It was born in a different era, when free mobile apps proliferate through word of mouth, not crapware PC installations by computer makers and ads for shrink-wrapped software. "We actually built a security product that people want to use," says Hering.