Good spot, it does get us closer but that mpkg does not contain the pre-configured auto-update settings. Note: Yes if you install SAV9 manually on a Mac and then make a monolithic master disk image that would work, however I like many others now prefer to use a thin imaging approach (via InstaDMG or AutoDMG). Other than Sophos Enterprise Console has anyone else found a solution to let you mass deploy SAV9? The only approach that still gives you a proper installer package is via Sophos Enterprise Console running on a Windows server.

This does let you manage via the Cloud your Macs, it does let your Macs directly update from Sophos, but a) the website for Sophos Cloud is not 100% Safari friendly, and much more importantly b) the installer it produces is yet again an application and not an installer package! The final possibility and the one Sophos are pushing Mac only customers to, is to sign up for an extra cost subscription to Sophos Cloud. However at least with Adobe Flash you can find if you look hard enough a standard package file to install Flash.

(The application needs to be run as an application on each client Mac to do the actual installation.) This stupid design is like the equally stupid approach taken by Adobe and Flash. As a result it cannot be deployed using Apple Remote Desktop, Casper, Munki, or any other Mac management tool. Unfortunately Sophos have made this installer an application and not an installer package. It is even possible to pre-configure the auto-update account details for this. If you have no Windows Server, and can no longer use SUM, this leaves two more possibilities, first you could use the standalone SAV9 installer. It is therefore urgent to move all Macs to SAV9 by April 2014. SAV8 is being discontinued in April 2014 and does not officially support Mavericks. Unfortunately SUM only supports SAV8 and does not support SAV9. Previously Mac only organisations could use Sophos Update Manager to do much the same on a Mac server. Multi-platform organisations are likely to have a Windows server (or more than one) and can therefore run Sophos Enterprise Console to create and manage a Mac installer for Sophos Anti-Virus.

Sophos have gone from being one of the best Mac enterprise anti-virus solutions to (perhaps) the worst.

Sophos antivirus for macbook pro