Microsoft: Users may have to pay for security

Thanks nextyxp...RSA 2002: Microsoft is considering charging for additional security options, and admits it didn't move on security until customers were ready to pay for it Microsoft "may offer new security abilities on a paid basis," according to the company's chief technical officer Craig Mundie. The possibility is under consideration within Microsoft's security business unit, recently set up under its own vice president, Mike Nash.

The idea is still only hypothetical, but represents an acknowledgement that Microsoft sees security not just as a necessary condition to reassure existing and future customers, but also as a potential source of revenue.

"Our work was diffuse, but we have quite a few security initiatives," said Mundie, speaking on Tuesday at the RSA Conference on IT security in Paris. "Mike is assessing that. The unit will have inputs into products, marketing, training and other areas."

In presenting Microsoft's trustworthy computing initiative, Mundie defended the company's reluctance to follow through and accept legal responsibility for the security of its products. "If we took that responsibility, say for a big contract at Airbus, I would have to take out a giant insurance policy from Lloyds or another insurance broker, and pay a giant invoice," said Mundie. "The product would then cost not 50 euros, but 50 million."

Legal liability would cost the user greatly he said, and contracts like the one he described were the exact opposite of the normal situation. "In such a situation, the computer must not change, and only technicians could touch it. This is the antithesis of the general purpose mass market business."

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