EDR Vendor Comparison for Small Business (2026)

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WHAT EDR IS AND WHY CYBER INSURANCE NOW REQUIRES IT.

EDR — Endpoint Detection and Response — is the modern endpoint security category that replaced traditional antivirus. The shift happened over roughly 2018-2024. Legacy AV worked by matching files against a signature database of known-bad malware. EDR works by watching behavior: what processes start, what they read, what they write, what they connect to, what registry keys they touch, what memory they read. When the behavior pattern matches an attack — even a never-before-seen variant — EDR detects it. EDR can also take containment action automatically: kill the process, quarantine the file, isolate the endpoint from the network, roll back unauthorized file changes.

By 2026, EDR is on every cyber-insurance underwriter questionnaire as a binary attestation — yes or no, deployed to all endpoints or not. Carriers that bind without EDR are increasingly rare, and policies bound without EDR carry premium loads and coverage caps that make the math worse than just deploying it. The question for the SMB is no longer “EDR or not?” — it's “which EDR?”

HHS OCR audit protocols, SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria, the FTC Safeguards Rule's “reasonable and appropriate” standard, and CMMC 2.0 Level 2 controls all functionally require EDR even if they don't name it explicitly. The Security Rule at 45 CFR 164.308(a)(5)(ii)(B) requires protection from malicious software; in 2026, the way you do that is EDR.

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THE 4 VENDORS THAT COVER 80% OF THE SMB MARKET.

The EDR market has consolidated. There are dozens of vendors, but for the small-business segment (5-100 endpoints, North Central Florida) four cover the overwhelming majority of deployments:

Microsoft Defender for Business: The default for any SMB on Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Bundled with the M365 license; tight integration with the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem.
SentinelOne: The standalone best-of-breed. Behavioral AI, vendor-neutral (works on M365 or Google Workspace), strong on mixed-OS shops.
CrowdStrike Falcon: The enterprise standard. Best-in-class threat intelligence and managed services; SMB tier (Falcon Go) opens it to smaller deployments.
Sophos Intercept X: The MSP-friendly option. Strong Sophos Central management console, packaged with managed detection and response (MTR), popular with MSPs serving SMBs.

Other vendors you may encounter — Bitdefender GravityZone, ESET PROTECT, Trend Micro Apex One, Cylance (now Arctic Wolf), Cisco Secure Endpoint, Huntress — are all legitimate platforms with their use cases. We've evaluated them and the four above are what we recommend for the typical Florida SMB.

The remainder of this guide covers each of the four in depth, then the 10 evaluation criteria you can use to pick between them, real per-endpoint pricing, integration trade-offs, and where Simply IT lands by default.

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MICROSOFT DEFENDER FOR BUSINESS: THE M365-NATIVE OPTION.

Microsoft Defender for Business is Microsoft's EDR offering for the SMB segment. It became generally available in 2022 and has matured rapidly since. By 2026 it's the most-deployed EDR on small-business endpoints in the United States — driven primarily by the fact that it's bundled with Microsoft 365 Business Premium at no incremental cost.

Strengths: Native integration with the rest of M365 — Conditional Access, Entra ID identity events, Defender for Office 365 email signals, Intune device management — all flow into the same Defender portal. The vulnerability-management piece (which would be a paid add-on at most competitors) is included. The detection quality has reached parity with the standalone vendors for the threat patterns SMBs actually face. Microsoft's threat intelligence (informed by signal from billions of M365 endpoints globally) is among the broadest in the industry.

Weaknesses: Less mature on macOS than the Windows side (catching up rapidly but still trailing). The reporting and alert-tuning interfaces are functional but not as polished as SentinelOne or CrowdStrike. Mac-heavy creative shops, Linux server environments, and clients with very specific behavioral-detection needs sometimes choose alternatives.

Pricing: Defender for Business standalone is roughly $3 per endpoint per month, but the way most Florida SMBs consume it is through Microsoft 365 Business Premium ($27/user/month), which bundles Defender for Business with the full M365 productivity stack, Intune, Entra ID Premium, and Defender for Office 365 Plan 1. For SMBs already on Business Premium, deploying Defender for Business adds no marginal cost.

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SENTINELONE: THE STANDALONE BEST-OF-BREED.

SentinelOne is the standalone EDR most respected by independent third-party tests (MITRE ATT&CK evaluations, AV-Comparatives, SE Labs). It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, and a handful of less-common platforms. The behavioral AI engine — Static AI and Behavioral AI working together — operates locally on the endpoint, which means detection and response work even when the endpoint is offline.

Strengths: Excellent detection on novel and zero-day threats. Automatic rollback of ransomware-encrypted files (the “Storyline” feature reconstructs the attack chain and can undo changes). Strong on macOS and Linux compared to Defender. Vendor-neutral — equally happy on M365, Google Workspace, hybrid, or no cloud platform at all. The Singularity platform extends beyond EDR into identity threat detection, cloud workload protection, and data security.

Weaknesses: Standalone vendor relationship (separate billing, separate portal, separate support). Pricing is per-endpoint above Defender if the client is already on M365 Business Premium. Tier choice can be confusing — Core, Control, Complete, Commercial, Enterprise — and the right tier for an SMB is rarely the entry-level one.

Pricing: SentinelOne Core (basic EDR) runs roughly $5-7 per endpoint per month for SMB volumes. Control adds device control and firewall control for another $2/endpoint. Complete adds threat hunting and forensic features for another $3-4/endpoint. Most regulated SMBs we deploy SentinelOne for end up on Control or Complete. Negotiable at 50+ endpoints.

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CROWDSTRIKE FALCON: THE ENTERPRISE-GRADE CHOICE.

CrowdStrike Falcon is the dominant EDR in the enterprise segment — Fortune 500, government, large MDR providers. The platform is built around a lightweight agent reporting to a cloud console, with the heavy lifting done in CrowdStrike's cloud. The threat intelligence team (formerly part of CrowdStrike Strategic Threat Advisory Group) is among the most respected in the industry; the Falcon OverWatch managed threat-hunting service is a tier of capability most SMBs can't replicate internally.

Strengths: Best-in-class threat intelligence and threat hunting. Excellent detection and response capability. Falcon Go (the SMB tier) brought the platform into reach for businesses below the traditional enterprise threshold. Deep integrations across the broader Falcon Platform — identity, cloud, observability, data protection — for clients who go all-in.

Weaknesses: Enterprise pricing and commercial posture, even at the SMB tier. Annual commitments and complex licensing are standard. The platform sophistication is overkill for many smaller SMBs — they pay for capability they don't consume. The July 2024 outage incident also lives in many SMB IT decision-makers' recent memory and factors into procurement decisions in 2026.

Pricing: Falcon Go for SMBs runs roughly $5-7 per endpoint per month at small volumes; Pro $8-11; Enterprise $11-15. Add Falcon Complete (managed) for another premium. For most Florida SMBs under 50 endpoints, CrowdStrike is the right answer only if there's a specific reason — internal SOC, enterprise integration requirement, regulatory or contractual demand. Otherwise Defender or SentinelOne usually wins on total cost of ownership.

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SOPHOS INTERCEPT X: THE MSP-FRIENDLY OPTION.

Sophos Intercept X is the EDR many MSPs deployed first, before Defender for Business existed and before SentinelOne reached its current maturity. The Sophos Central management console is well-loved by MSPs because it's designed for multi-tenant operation — one MSP technician can manage Sophos across dozens of client tenants from a single portal. Sophos MTR (Managed Threat Response) bundles the platform with human SOC coverage at a price point that makes it accessible for SMBs without separate MDR procurement.

Strengths: Clean MSP-oriented management. CryptoGuard ransomware-rollback technology with strong real-world track record. Tight integration with Sophos Firewall (XGS) for clients running Sophos as a perimeter brand — synchronized security where firewall and endpoint share threat intelligence. MTR bundle pricing is competitive for SMBs that need MDR coverage but don't want vendor-on-vendor stack complexity.

Weaknesses: M365 integration is less native than Defender for Business — Sophos is a third-party vendor relative to Microsoft, so signal-correlation across email and endpoint requires manual configuration. Detection quality is good but not consistently top of independent test results in 2025-2026. Mac coverage is improving but trails SentinelOne.

Pricing: Intercept X Advanced runs $5-8 per endpoint per month. With MTR Standard (managed detection and response) the bundle runs $10-15/endpoint. Sophos is one of the more negotiable vendors at SMB scale and the MSP-channel pricing is generally competitive.

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THE 10 EVALUATION CRITERIA THAT MATTER FOR SMBs.

Most SMB EDR procurement decisions get made on price and brand. The decision is materially better if it accounts for these ten criteria — the ones that actually predict outcomes once the platform is in production:

01
M365 vs Multi-Platform Posture
If you're standardized on Microsoft 365, Defender for Business is the path of least resistance. If you're multi-platform or considering migrating to/from Google Workspace, vendor-neutral options (SentinelOne) reduce switching cost.
02
OS Mix (Windows / Mac / Linux)
Defender for Business is strongest on Windows. SentinelOne and CrowdStrike have strong Mac and Linux. A Mac-heavy creative shop, a Linux-server environment, or a hybrid is rarely best served by Windows-first solutions.
03
Endpoint Count and Growth Trajectory
Volume drives pricing. Under 25 endpoints, Defender for Business (via M365 Business Premium) usually wins on cost. Above 50 endpoints, the standalone vendors negotiate.
04
Internal SOC vs MDR Requirement
If you don't have a 24/7 SOC (you don't), you need MDR coverage. Defender + Simply IT MDR-equivalent coverage, or SentinelOne Vigilance, or CrowdStrike Falcon Complete, or Sophos MTR.
05
Regulated-Industry Constraints
HIPAA-aligned BAA support, FedRAMP authorization for federal-adjacent work, CMMC alignment for defense contractors. Defender supports M365 GCC for CMMC; SentinelOne has gov-cloud options; CrowdStrike has FedRAMP.
06
Cyber-Insurance Carrier Preferences
Some carriers favor specific vendors with better pricing or coverage. Coalition has named partnerships; Travelers and Chubb publish broad acceptance. Ask your broker.
07
Rollback / Self-Healing Capability
Automatic ransomware rollback (SentinelOne Storyline, Sophos CryptoGuard) is a meaningful operational difference at SMB scale where dedicated forensic recovery is expensive.
08
Management Console Quality
If you or your MSP will be in the console daily, console design matters. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne consoles are widely admired; Defender portal is functional but Microsoft-traditional; Sophos Central is MSP-friendly multi-tenant.
09
Integration With Existing Stack
Already have Microsoft Sentinel, or a Sophos firewall, or a SentinelOne XDR posture? Stick with the family. Mixing vendors is supported but adds operational complexity.
10
Vendor Stability and Support Quality
EDR is a multi-year commitment. Vendor financial health, support ticket quality, and outage track record (looking at you, July 2024) all factor in. Ask for references at your size band before signing.

The right vendor is rarely the same answer across all 10 criteria. The decision is a weighted-average problem, not a single-criterion ranking. For most Florida SMBs on M365 Business Premium, Defender for Business wins more criteria than it loses — which is why it's our default.

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PRICING REALITY: PER-ENDPOINT PER-MONTH IN 2026.

Published vendor pricing pages are rarely the actual price an SMB pays. Here's the realistic 2026 landscape for North Central Florida SMBs in the 5-100 endpoint range:

Defender for Business (standalone): roughly $3/endpoint/month.
Defender for Business (via M365 Business Premium $27/user/month): effectively zero incremental cost; Defender is part of the bundle along with M365 productivity apps, Intune, Entra Premium, Defender for Office 365 Plan 1.
SentinelOne Core / Control / Complete: $5-7 / $7-9 / $9-12 per endpoint per month.
CrowdStrike Falcon Go / Pro / Enterprise: $5-7 / $8-11 / $11-15 per endpoint per month.
Sophos Intercept X Advanced / + MTR Standard: $5-8 / $10-15 per endpoint per month.

For nonprofits, Microsoft 365 nonprofit pricing dramatically changes the math: Basic and Standard are free, Premium is $6 per user per month — making the M365 Business Premium + Defender for Business path effectively unbeatable on cost for qualifying nonprofits. Most Florida nonprofits we work with land on Premium for the security stack.

The non-obvious cost line: the human side. EDR without MDR coverage is a portal full of alerts nobody reads. Simply IT bundles MDR-equivalent coverage into the managed-IT tiers (Simply Essential $75/user, Simply Secure $125/user, Simply Compliant $150/user per month, no long-term contracts). That math typically beats stacking standalone vendor licenses plus a separate MSP.

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INTEGRATION WITH MICROSOFT 365 AND EXISTING SECURITY STACK.

The biggest practical advantage of Defender for Business over the other three vendors is the M365 integration story. Defender shares one identity surface (Entra ID), one device-management surface (Intune), one email-security surface (Defender for Office 365), and one unified portal (security.microsoft.com). When a phishing email is reported, Defender correlates the email signal with the user's endpoint activity and identity-risk score automatically. That correlation work has to be done manually (or via SIEM) with third-party vendors.

For SMBs where the M365 estate is mature and the security stack is built around it — Conditional Access policies, Intune-enrolled devices, audit logging into the M365 Unified Audit Log — Defender for Business is the path of least resistance and lowest operational overhead.

For SMBs where M365 is just email and Teams, where there's no Intune, no Conditional Access, mixed-OS endpoints, or a strong preference for vendor-neutral tooling, SentinelOne is the more flexible answer. The standalone vendor relationship is a feature, not a bug — it doesn't lock you into anything else in the Microsoft stack.

The other integration to consider: SIEM and SOAR. If the client already has Microsoft Sentinel, Defender funnels into Sentinel natively; SentinelOne and CrowdStrike connect via well-supported integrations. Sophos has a less mature SIEM-side story. For most SMBs SIEM is overkill and Sentinel-via-MSP is the practical option.

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SOC AND MDR ADD-ONS: WHEN YOU NEED MANAGED RESPONSE.

The single most important truth about EDR for SMBs: software without a human watching it produces alerts nobody reads. By 2026, every reasonable EDR engagement includes a human-SOC layer — sometimes called MDR (Managed Detection and Response), sometimes XDR-with-managed-services, sometimes just “your MSP triages alerts 24/7.”

Three procurement paths get you there:

Vendor-bundled MDR. SentinelOne Vigilance Respond, CrowdStrike Falcon Complete, Sophos MTR, Defender for Business + Defender Experts (Microsoft's managed service). The advantage: tight platform integration, single vendor relationship. The cost: $5-15/endpoint above the EDR license.
Third-party MDR provider. Arctic Wolf, eSentire, Huntress, ReliaQuest. The advantage: vendor-agnostic SOC that works with whichever EDR you chose. The cost: typically $20-40 per endpoint per month at SMB scale.
MSP-provided coverage. Your managed IT provider triages EDR alerts as part of the standard engagement, often using their own SOC partnerships or internal team. The advantage: integrated with the rest of your IT operations, single point of contact, predictable monthly cost. The cost: typically bundled into the per-user managed-IT fee.

For Simply IT's Florida SMB clients, MDR-equivalent coverage is included in every managed-IT tier — alerts get triaged 24/7 as part of the engagement, not as a separate line item. This is the right model for the typical 5-50 person practice or firm. Stand-alone MDR providers and vendor-bundled MDR make more sense at larger scale.

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THE SIMPLY IT EDR STACK — DEFENDER DEFAULT, SENTINELONE WHERE IT FITS.

Here's the practical answer: Simply IT's default EDR for new managed clients is Microsoft Defender for Business, delivered via Microsoft 365 Business Premium. The reasons stack: it's included in the M365 license most clients already have or are moving toward, the M365 ecosystem integration (Conditional Access, Intune, Defender for Office 365, Entra ID) compounds value, detection quality has reached parity with the standalone vendors for SMB-relevant threats, and it eliminates a separate vendor billing and support relationship.

We deploy SentinelOne at clients where Defender for Business doesn't fit: heavy Mac populations (creative shops, certain medical and legal practices), Linux server environments, mixed-cloud or non-M365 productivity stacks, or specific behavioral-detection requirements (some defense contractors and SOC 2 audit demands). The cost is incremental but the fit is right.

CrowdStrike and Sophos are platforms we'll deploy when a client specifically requests them, when they have a pre-existing contract we're inheriting, or when their compliance or insurance environment specifically calls for one. We're vendor-neutral on EDR — the right answer is the one that fits the client's situation, not the one we're paid the most to push.

The bottom line for Florida SMBs: in 2026, EDR is required infrastructure. The default answer for most of you is Microsoft Defender for Business via M365 Business Premium, with SentinelOne as the secondary path for non-M365-native fits. If you'd like a vendor-neutral recommendation specific to your business, get a free Simply IT EDR scoping call — we'll review your current stack, your insurance environment, and your compliance posture, and give you an honest written recommendation. No obligation, no long-term contracts.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.

What is EDR?+

EDR stands for Endpoint Detection and Response. It's the modern category of endpoint security software that replaced legacy signature-based antivirus. Where antivirus matches files against a known-bad signature database, EDR watches process behavior, network activity, file system changes, registry modifications, and memory operations — and uses that behavioral telemetry to detect attacks the signature databases haven't seen yet. EDR can also contain an active attack: kill a process, isolate the endpoint from the network, roll back unauthorized changes. By 2026, EDR is table stakes — cyber-insurance underwriters, HIPAA risk analyses, and SOC 2 audits all expect it.

What's the difference between EDR and antivirus?+

Antivirus is reactive and signature-based: it knows about specific malware files and blocks them. EDR is behavioral and proactive: it watches what processes do at runtime and detects malicious patterns even from never-before-seen executables. Antivirus catches yesterday's threats; EDR catches today's and (often) tomorrow's. Almost every modern EDR platform also includes traditional signature-based detection — so ‘EDR’ is effectively a superset of ‘antivirus’ in 2026, not a replacement that gives up the legacy capability.

Does cyber insurance actually require EDR?+

Yes. Every major cyber-insurance carrier (Coalition, Travelers, AIG, Chubb, Beazley, AmTrust) now requires ‘next-generation endpoint protection’ or ‘EDR’ explicitly on the underwriter questionnaire. Some carriers will bind without it but with materially higher premiums and lower coverage limits; most carriers will not bind at all for SMBs over a certain size threshold (usually 25 employees) without an EDR attestation. By renewal 2026, EDR is a non-negotiable on essentially every commercial cyber policy at any reasonable price.

How does Microsoft Defender for Business compare to SentinelOne?+

Defender for Business is bundled with Microsoft 365 Business Premium ($27 per user per month, which also includes M365 productivity apps and Intune). SentinelOne is a standalone EDR at roughly $5-10 per endpoint per month depending on tier and volume. Defender's strengths: deep M365 integration, Conditional Access, unified portal with Defender for Office 365, no separate vendor relationship. SentinelOne's strengths: best-of-breed detection, behavioral AI engine, automated rollback of ransomware encryption, vendor-neutral (works equally well on M365, Google Workspace, hybrid). For most Florida SMBs already on M365 Business Premium, Defender is the right starting point; SentinelOne fits where Defender doesn't reach (legacy servers, mixed-OS shops, Mac-heavy creative shops).

How does Defender for Business compare to CrowdStrike?+

CrowdStrike Falcon is the enterprise standard — Fortune 500, government, MDR providers. Pricing is enterprise: $8-15 per endpoint per month depending on module mix, with annual commitments standard. Detection is excellent, telemetry is rich, the threat-hunting bench is the deepest in the industry. For an SMB under 50 endpoints, CrowdStrike is usually overkill in both capability and cost relative to Defender for Business. We deploy CrowdStrike at clients who specifically request it, who have enterprise integration requirements, or who already have an internal SOC. For most Florida SMBs Defender for Business is the more economical choice.

What does EDR cost per endpoint in 2026?+

Per-endpoint per-month list pricing: Defender for Business (standalone, no M365) $3/endpoint; bundled inside Microsoft 365 Business Premium $27/user effectively making EDR free of incremental cost. SentinelOne Core $5-7/endpoint; Control $7-9; Complete $9-12. CrowdStrike Falcon Go (SMB) $5-7; Pro $8-11; Enterprise $11-15. Sophos Intercept X Advanced $5-8 with MTR (managed threat response) $10-15. SMB pricing varies meaningfully with volume; the published pricing pages are not always the real pricing. Almost every vendor will negotiate at 50+ endpoints.

What's the difference between MDR and EDR?+

EDR is the software. MDR (Managed Detection and Response) is the human SOC layer on top of it. EDR generates alerts; MDR triages them, investigates the serious ones, and takes containment action 24/7. For SMBs without an internal SOC (which is essentially all SMBs), an MDR add-on or an MSP that provides MDR coverage is the practical way to get value from the EDR investment. Otherwise alerts pile up in a portal nobody is watching at 2am. Simply IT provides MDR-equivalent coverage for our managed clients as part of the standard engagement.

Is EDR required for HIPAA compliance?+

HIPAA doesn't name EDR specifically (the Security Rule is technology-neutral by design), but 45 CFR 164.308(a)(1)(ii)(B) requires ‘reasonable and appropriate’ security measures to protect ePHI, and 164.308(a)(5)(ii)(B) requires protection from malicious software. In 2026, an HHS OCR investigator asking ‘what protects your workstations from ransomware’ and getting the answer ‘a free antivirus from 2018’ will not consider that reasonable or appropriate. EDR is the de facto answer to that question, and every Florida medical practice we work with deploys EDR on every workstation and server.

Can you switch EDR vendors mid-policy-year?+

Yes, but coordinate with the cyber-insurance broker before the switch. Mid-year vendor changes are not unusual (we do them regularly when a client outgrows Defender Standalone and moves to Business Premium, or migrates from legacy antivirus). The carrier needs to be notified, the new vendor needs to be reflected on the policy attestation, and there should be no coverage gap between the old vendor uninstall and the new vendor deployment. We schedule cutover so there's 24-48 hours of overlap where both products are live.

How does EDR work for remote workers and laptops off the corporate network?+

Modern EDR (all four vendors covered here) is cloud-managed. The agent on the laptop reports to the vendor's cloud console regardless of which network the laptop is on, and the cloud console can take action (isolate the device, kill a process, push an update) anywhere there's internet. This is a meaningful improvement over legacy antivirus, which often required the device to be on the corporate network to receive updates and report status. EDR is the right answer for remote-work, hybrid, and travel-heavy workforces.

How do you handle EDR alerts so they don't pile up unread?+

Three-layer approach: (1) Tune the platform aggressively in the first 30 days so the noise-to-signal ratio is manageable — most EDR platforms generate dozens of low-fidelity alerts per day out of the box. (2) Subscribe to a managed service (MDR from the vendor, or MSP-provided coverage like Simply IT's) so a human is triaging alerts 24/7. (3) Reserve direct admin attention for high-severity events only; treat the medium-severity bucket as a weekly review queue. SMBs that try to self-manage EDR alerts without one of those three layers in place typically stop watching within 90 days.

Does Simply IT manage EDR for clients?+

Yes. Every Simply IT managed client receives EDR on every workstation and server as part of the standard engagement — Defender for Business (default, included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium) or SentinelOne (deployed where M365 doesn't reach or where the client's environment makes Defender the wrong fit). Simply IT's managed-IT tiers run $75 per user per month (Simply Essential), $125 per user per month (Simply Secure), and $150 per user per month (Simply Compliant), all with no long-term contracts. The EDR layer, MDR-equivalent monitoring, and incident response coverage are bundled — not separate line items.

EDR VENDOR COMPARISON FOR SMALL BUSINESS — DEFENDER vs SENTINELONE vs CROWDSTRIKE vs SOPHOS.

ELEVEN SECTIONS. ABOUT 4,000 WORDS.