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22 Sep 2000

Norwich Union signs up for Sophos Anti-Virus protection

UK's largest insurance group enters new relationship with industry leader

CGNU logo

Sophos, the world's leading developer of corporate anti-virus protection, has announced that Norwich Union, the UK's largest insurance group, has chosen Sophos Anti-Virus to protect 22,000 desktop PCs against computer viruses. Norwich Union recently merged with CGU, and this is one of the first steps to help reduce cost overheads through standardised desktops and centralised purchasing.

"We are constantly seeking to ensure high corporate standards across our entire IT network and maintain the high level of security essential to our business, especially since the two organisations merged earlier this year," said Paul Hemsley, IT purchasing consultant, Norwich Union. "Sophos Anti-Virus is recognised as one of the world's leading anti-virus companies and this selection provides us with a high quality, dependable product backed by an excellent support package."

Staff at Norwich Union use desktop PCs to run standard desktop programs and other business software applications and provide access to the organisation's customer databases. Sophos Anti-Virus will be used initially at Norwich Union's major sites across the UK with a planned rollout to smaller premises and retail outlets across the country implemented over the next two years. Sophos has developed a licensing and purchasing package that encourages other companies in Norwich Union to "buy-in" to the solution. Within a month of the contract, 3 companies - including one overseas - had taken that opportunity.

Sophos remains the only independent anti-virus software vendor that focuses on supplying high quality software and support 24 hours a day to corporate customers. Over 65% of the top 100 companies in the FT500 listing use Sophos Anti-Virus, demonstrating the high level of trust that large corporations place in the company.

About CGNU

The merger of CGU and Norwich Union in May 2000 brought together two major organisations to form CGNU - the UK's largest insurance group and one of the top five life insurers in Europe with substantial positions in other markets around the world. CGNU's principal business activities are long-term savings, general insurance and asset management, with worldwide premium income and retail investment sales of £26 billion.

About Sophos

More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.

Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.