If it's a network and you have enough money to have a network admin, I don't think you should be installing software firewalls on the machines. Generally it's cheaper and "better" for you to have one firewall acting as a gateway for all your machines. For one thing, it means that all the machines share the same firewall rules, and for another, it means if you want to update the firewall to block something or allow something, you only have to change your gateway.

I'm not going to say that hardware firewalls are better than software firewalls, etc...but I don't think you should have individual firewalls for each machines, and a machine running as a dedicated firewall and gateway is probably going to be more expensive and more hassle than a hardware firewall/router would be.

So before you say that the guy is a nutter, ask him what the setup is. Ask him what his reasons for saying that you don't need firewalls/antivirus software, and check out if you do have a firewall at the gateway. He may have had a reason.

ac