Anti-virus software 'Rudra' unveiled in S'pore

Singapore, May 21: Aimed at replacing some of the established international names in anti-virus softwares, an Indian IT expertise-backed software 'Rudra' was launched in Singapore today.

Rudra is the world's first third generation anti-virus software to protect computers from the past, present and future viruses, claims Singapore-incorporated Rudra Technologies Managing Director N S Baskar. Rudra, with patent registered globally, was developed after more than eight years of research and four years of product development phases, said Mr Baskar, who spent the first six years working on the anti-virus system in Chennai.

He relocated the product development and his business to Singapore in 2006 at the local government's invitation, which offered tax incentives to develop software programmes.

However, Chennai remains the main testing site for the new system, expected to capture a lion's share of the 1.36-billion computers being used worldwide.

Mr Baskar said his company is in discussions with several international software and computer companies to bundle the Rudra anti-virus software into new systems.

He has already sold more than 23,000 sets of Rudra under test marketing.

''Our system is installed once and there is no renewal fee,'' Mr Baskar told reporters at the launch of Rudra version 3.1 today.

Rudra users will get an automatic update to their installed systems providing updates to any new version of the software, and claims to be proactive in tackling computer virus compared with existing reactive systems.

Each Rudra set has been priced at 75 Singapore dollars or 55 US dollars.

UNI