Trend Micro

GB600 – Leadership: Unit 2 – MBA Focus Paper, Trend Micro

June 15, 2010

Introduction

Trend Micro is a global company headquartered in Tokyo that develops software and services to provide computer security. Steve Chang who started the company in California founded Trend Micro in 1988. The company grew globally with locations in Taiwan, Japan, China, France, Germany, Ireland, United States, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Malaysia, Philippines and New Zealand. (Trend Micro Profile, 2010)

Trend Micro is well known for producing anti-virus products. Trend Micro has been the premier virus scanner for Hotmail.com since 2004, scanning every attachment that passes through Hotmail.com’s system. Along with being Hotmail.com’s official virus scanner, Trend Micro host a variety of successful products and services that has put the company among the top security software developers around the world (Trend Micro Profile, 2010).

TrendLabs are Trend Micro’s worldwide response centers that provide research and information about security threats. The main response center is located in the Philippines. The company has other TrendLabs in various locations between Munich, Germany and Tokyo, Japan.

Trend Micro is rather spread out globally with its financial headquarters is in Tokyo, response centers between Germany and Tokyo, product development in Taiwan, and most of its sales in the Silicon Valley area of America. Though the company is growing, with operations so wide spread the CEO of Trend Micro questions whether organizational structure changes should be addressed. Would the company benefit from regional headquarter sites?

In addition to possible organizational structure changes, the company has faced criticism in recent times. Critics argue that Trend Micro is transferring the wrong kind of technology to developing nations and that the company is not substantially increasing employment in the these lesser...