Late Monday Microsoft announced that it’s still on track to deliver its own anti-virus software. Mike Nash (Microsoft's chief of security business unit) said that this anti-virus software will ship separately from Windows. This comes as good news for those who were worried that Microsoft would abuse its monopoly, and include it into Windows. Still Microsoft has a lot of ground to gain in order to catch up to its competitors who have already established themselves as the top guns in the anti-virus market.
Microsoft Corp. is still on track to offer an anti-virus product that will compete against similar software offered by Symantec Corp. and Network Associates Inc., the world's largest software maker said late on Monday. Mike Nash, chief of Microsoft's security business unit, told reporters that Microsoft is developing software to protect personal computers running Windows against malicious software, the worms and viruses that have plagued users with data loss, shutdowns and disruptions in Web traffic in recent years.
"We're still planning to offer our own AV (anti-virus) product," Nash said. Asked if that would hurt sales of competing products, such as Network Associates' McAfee and Symantec's Norton family of products, Nash said that Microsoft said that it would sell its anti-virus program as a separate product from Windows, rather than including it in Windows. Redmond, Washington-based acquired anti-virus technology from GeCAD Software Srl., a Romanian software company, last year to develop its own software.
News source: Reuters
Microsoft Corp. is still on track to offer an anti-virus product that will compete against similar software offered by Symantec Corp. and Network Associates Inc., the world's largest software maker said late on Monday. Mike Nash, chief of Microsoft's security business unit, told reporters that Microsoft is developing software to protect personal computers running Windows against malicious software, the worms and viruses that have plagued users with data loss, shutdowns and disruptions in Web traffic in recent years.
"We're still planning to offer our own AV (anti-virus) product," Nash said. Asked if that would hurt sales of competing products, such as Network Associates' McAfee and Symantec's Norton family of products, Nash said that Microsoft said that it would sell its anti-virus program as a separate product from Windows, rather than including it in Windows. Redmond, Washington-based acquired anti-virus technology from GeCAD Software Srl., a Romanian software company, last year to develop its own software.
News source: Reuters
Additional note; the store only accepts Mastercard, Visa, Solo and Switch. A strange move to ignore the ever popular electron card, a card mainly used by the music listening youth that Apple would be more than wise to tap into. The store also requires a credit card (or one of the above) to register an account for the service.
Examples:
Microsoft Tax Software they released in 2001
Microsoft Photodraw they released in 2000
Plenty of Multimedia software apps
Microsoft's Network Products
Microsoft's USB speakers from the late 90s
Microsoft's "Digital" Phone that would connect with your PC & Telephone line
See people will buy this, but if there aren't enough people, or Microsoft thinks there aren't enough people... they stop development. Which is a waste since Microsoft has plenty of $$$ to support its products.
Microsoft Printing System
Microsoft PhotoDraw
Microsoft Image Composer
Microsoft Entertainment Pack?
...
How is this not a conflict of interest?
Translation:
"We aren't going to use or OS monopoly to get rid of the competitors this time, but rest assured we will be invading and profiting from a new market"
This is a good move for MS and a way to secure people.
AVG antivirus is free.
Then explain it if you have all the answers.
It should be an option when you install windows, and you should be able to totally remove it easily (unlike ie), but having to pay for it seperatly is stupid, and basically shows that microsoft doesn't care about stopping virus from spreading they just want to make a quick buck
STV
I, for one, am interested to see how this turns out. Who knows how to best integrate with Windows better than the owner of the source code? After the terrible 2004 offerings from Symantec and McAfee, I am wide open to new options.
i think you'll see a lot of 'if you buy 200+ licenses of XP, we'll give you AV for $5 extra per license' or some stuff like that.
To hell with Symantec and the others, let them go broke, I don't care, it would finally protect idiot users, and more importantly, the Internet at large.
I think it is a great idea as Microsoft will be able to put pressure on AV companies to really innovate, the virus writers are but the av companies are not. Look at the different between NAV 2003 and 2004! It was awful, and I used to do work for Symantec. When I saw that I just thought "to hell with it" and looked around for an alternative. I settled with AVG7 Pro as it was the overall best (IMO).
Good if these viruses bomb microsoft sites.
It will be interesting to see just how comprehensive the AV suite released by MS is in comparison to the competition in the market place. If it is a good offering and received well in the IT press it may well indeed gain good market share. I could see Microsoft including this as an optional cost as part of its enterprise licensing agreement program. Customers don't want to go to multiple vendors to obtain technologies that will make the Windows installed base secure .......
i'd also buy a full featured firewall from them to which did crc32 checksum checks and outbound traffic.
yep!
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.