Avast! anti-virus from Strašnice

The statement that the Czech Republic is a software super power might surprise some. But the claim rings true especially when it comes to anti-virus programs. And the Prague company Alwil is the best example. Its anti-virus program avast! Is one of the most successful and wide-spread products of any Czech company on the global market. It is currently used by some 70 million people around the world. Avast history includes local versions of typical garage stories, in which talented students founded now giant computer companies.

Program in shadow

Alwil founders, Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera, met in the 1980s as fresh technology graduates in the Research Institute for Mathematical Machines. This institute, legendary in the computer circles, represented an oasis for its employees in the communist times. Software pre-history used to intertwine with the then uncommon freedom of thought. A number of Charta 77 signers worked there (such as Jan Sokol or Václav Žák) since the communists obviously did not consider the software development to be an ideologically essential field.

„There were many smart people and a lot of free time,“ Pavel Baudiš remembers. And despite technological novelties arriving with a delay, it wasn't too difficult to keep up with the world. "It is hard to imagine today. We were…