Productivity
Virus Scanners
It is very difficult for a security professional to recommend any sort of virus scanner. Why is this? Because they vary so much in quality, performance and reliability between versions, and as the company changes culture and work habits.
My strongest recommendation is to read security sites like CastleCops or SecurityFocus when evaluating a security application. If you see more than one negative posting, that should weigh more than a thousand positive commercial reviews. This assumption has born true many times throughout my career.
You should also re-evaluate your security applications on an ongoing basis, at least as often as any subscriptions cycle around. Do they hinder performance, make the computer system unstable, slow network traffic? Very little negative impact aside from slight performance degradation should be expected from properly developed security programs.
Don't be afraid to switch vendors because your subscriptions haven't run out. Explain to your administration how the application has been re-evaluated. Make it clear that you need to switch in order to meet your department's mission critical security goals.
