Why ZoneLabs went from best to worst?

[NS70]

ZoneLabs is under new management now, its been acquired by Check Point Software:
http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/rapidDeploy/press/2004/pr_8.html

Since the acquisition ZoneAlarm 5.0 has been released and it has serious errors:
http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=11594

I knew this would happen, it commonly does.
Is ZoneAlarm gone for good?

[TheJackal]

If your having problems with it, I dont see why you couldn't just go back to an older version.

[Jaggannath]

Yeah, that's true, but it's also not the point... when a company acquires a successful commercial entity, why is it that in the name of cost-cutting the product offered often goes to s**t?! And will this company realise what they released is rubbish and rectify their mistakes

[GrfxArt]

Maybe because some of the employees who orginally developed the software left the company because they didn't like the new "owners" rules, methods, employee benefits..etc, etc...

[pam123]

You have 3 choices.
Excusable error.
Incompetence.
Loot and run.
We'll all know within the next 18 months.
But I'm really uneasy about this.
If those M$ plans for a new firewall are for real someone may have decided that it was a good deal to grab the income, trash the company and blame the demise on M$ to cover it up ( 'the new firewall they installed for free did us in', nevermind that ZA was free ).
After all, it's not like the DOJ is doing it's job.

[glc]

Let's give them a fair chance to fix the 5.0 version before we condemn the company. I'm sticking with 4.5 myself for the time being. ANY dot zero software release is always chancy from ANY company.

However, there's a chance it's going to go down the terlet - lemme tell you a story.

Back in the days of no software firewalls, a small company up in Canada called Signal9 came up with a rules-based software firewall called Conseal. I had the privilege of beta testing for them. It was actually a decent product but man, writing rules was a pain in the rear - you had to be a TCP/IP expert to figure it out. About a year later they developed an application-based firewall and called it Private Desktop. This was a big hit with us beta testers - it was EASY. Well - the gate was open now - and Zone Labs, Sygate, etc. all came out with their own versions of application-based firewalls. Signal9 sold out to Network Associates, who renamed it from Private Desktop to McAfee Personal Firewall and ran it into the ground like they do with everything they get their hands on. They let the original developers keep the original firewall, and it faded from sight because nobody wanted to deal with trying to write rules. There's a real possibility that CheckPoint will do the same - and if they do, I guess I'll be looking for a different firewall.

[mbossman2]

oooo....Checkpoint, while they MAKE a decent product, has the amongst the worst support and the most convoluted licensing scheme in the network security business.

Maybe they'll turn it around, but I'll take some convincing.

One of the key components to business acquisitions that most companies overlook is not "how to pay for it" or "does the product mix well with ours" but is "how do I integrate the people", which in reality why you bought the company in the 1st place. Most companies do this job extremely poorly...i have only encountered 1 or 2 that do it OK (and just OK).