Symantec

These days, the real question with paid optimization software such as Symantec's Norton Utilities 15 ($50 as of January 5, 2011) is not whether it works or how well it functions, but whether you actually need it. With the speed of today's PCs, and with advances in both Windows and its file systems, problems such as disk fragmentation simply aren't the concern they once were.

Symantec's Enterprise Vault (EV) is as full-featured product in the enterprise space as you're likely to find, offering n-tier architecture, a very sophisticated feature set, superb expandability and integration with other Symantec e-mail security, storage and backup products.

Under the hood of the just-released Norton Internet Security 2010 is a new reputation-based security technology that the company claims is better positioned to protect against quickly evolving threats than traditional signature-based and behavior-based detection.