I'm from Microsoft. Here's how we crush bones
Credit John Thompson for having impeccable timing. Of course, the timing of his resignation announcement as chief executive officer from Symantec was purely coincidental, falling just one day before Microsoft dropped an A-bomb on the antivirus security market. But better lucky than good.
Microsoft's move to kill its Windows Live OneCare PC care and security suite and replace it with free consumer anti-malware software is a big deal for the likes of Symantec, McAfee, and the other antivirus suppliers (though nobody's going to say that on the record). Competing against free is always a tough sell, and this is no exception.
The only real surprise is that it took Microsoft this long to reach this point. But it's in line with the company's practice of offering for free the features that other application makers charge for. Let's remember that back in the Stone Age, companies used to sell things like word processors and spell checkers. Know anybody in their right mind still paying for that functionality today? Those companies--if they still exist--have long moved on because those businesses dried up. You can get that stuff (and a lot more) as part of Windows.
Forget antitrust claims. There's a world of difference between today's announcement and Microsoft's takedown of Netscape in the late 1990s. Microsoft is not the dominant vendor in the antivirus market. It won't be bundling the product with the Windows operating system. Neither will it force anyone to use the application. There's just no case to be made.
If past is prologue, I'm sure some commercial antivirus makers will argue that their products remain qualitatively head and shoulders above anything Microsoft could make in the security realm. Even if that were true, it doesn't matter. The economy's on all fours and times are getting worse. Some bozos may still be ordering $200 bottles of wine for dinner, but most folks are into saving their dimes.
In that budget environment, "free" is going to ring a special bell.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
Wikipedia: MSAV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Antivirus
Microsoft Support: MSAVW
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/97953/en-us
Way to go, Redmond.
Are you confusing Microsoft Word with Microsoft Windows?
The stone age? Ever heard of Microsoft Office? The thing lots of people still buy?
However, congrats to MS for offering free anti-virus/malware as part of the OS...it's a huge leap in the right direction.
I'm sick of buying computers that have 15-or-30-day-trials of Symantec antivirus on it, and then hound me about my trial expiring until I erase it from my hard drive.
And besides...Microsoft MAKES the operating system...if it's susceptible to viruses, it makes sense that the maker of the OS would be the one to keep it virus-free, not third parties.
This is great in theory and I am not suggesting anything against MS... but... in Defence organisations, countermeasures to missiles are mostly made by the same manufacturer as the missiles themselves! This may not be relevant on the surface to this topic, but effectively these organisations have doubled their markets as they provide the weapons and the countermeasures to their products. If you buy one, then you need the other. Which always makes buyers wary on whether performance of one may be hobbled to stay close to the other. Buy one, you have to buy the other. Third parties often drive innovation, and are not driven by dual agendas, and so should be supported for their often fresh approach.
I am not saying MS is following the Defence model, and I like their decisons re: Anitvirus in this article, but it makes me wonder... In defence of MS, making it a free download means less expenditure, so a shrewd business move.
I'm tired of hearing from Windows users who are afraid of installing anything on their computer while having a million programs in their system tray that put every in lock-down.
Feels good to get that out.
Also they have the most dishonest commercials I've ever seen. Funny, but lies.
In any case, with your logic here it means that auto makers need to sell car insurance along with their vehicles, after all they need to ensure your car is protected against collisions, theft, etc.
Oh and most of the viruses as we know them today are not viruses but spyware/ simple trojans. A virus by its basic defenition is an appending program that embeds itself within an executable (hopefully someone still remembers this). This no longer happens, in case you didnt know.
Why not go out and get free software that protects your computer. Spybot, and few others do a really good job, and they are all free.
Oh and hi I'm a PC user who uses Windows and Linux and I dispise apple users who think they are the hot $*it for paying 3 grand for something I can buy off newegg for $599.
Seriously - no other operating system vendor out there has or gives away A/V software just to plug the holes that its parent product seems to be riddled with.
OTOH, I can't seem to muster any love for the likes of Symantec... they seemed a bit too vulture-ish, profiting off of others' misery to make a living (and watching system resources go down that great big hole their products create can't be fun either...)
BTW - there are some rather capable basic word processors that arrive for free with OSX, or are downloadable... MS Office's only reason for its continued existence has more to do with the massive pile of legacy proprietary document formats (.doc, .xls, etc) than for any reason of merit... so yeah, Charlie is right on that point.
/P
They did. Do you realize how difficult it is to crack into Vista remotely? Lets be objective and not fanboy each other (not saying YOU will, but someone will come along). Vista/2008 are incredibly secure. IE Protected mode, ASLR, Bitlocker, WFAS, ets. It's a tank.
However, there is nothing MS can do to prevent some user from saying, "Sure, go ahead and elevate to admin and install that software...click!"
The hole is not in the OS. It's between the user's ears.
Apples have been very lucky in this regard. Why aren't there rampant Viruses for Apple? They have a pretty secure OS, but not invulnerable (a fair statement I hope you'll agree). For arguments sake lets say it IS an invulnerable OS. They still have the 'hole between the user's ear's' vulnerability. You can't attribute all malware and viruses to defects in the OS.
Apple is still benefiting in this regard from it's relatively low market share. I hope Apple users are watching and learning from the malware struggle and not just watching and laughing...otherwise the wakeup call is going to be a 'blaster'.
More difficult than Windows XP, still less difficult than its competition. Problem is, well - let's use your analogy - they spent time and treasure building a protective shell, but its still squishy and rather soft inside. IOW, the internal design itself is still flawed... and an even better analogy is that they took a straw hut and covered it in iron plating - the internal frame sags under the load (hence the heavy hardware requirements). What they need to do is what Apple did to OSX - cast aside the obsolete architecture and harden it from the inside out.
"The hole is not in the OS. It's between the user's ears."
...and that's part of the reason why they need to do it.
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@ "Apple is still benefiting in this regard from it's relatively low market share." - Sorry, but that argument doesn't really fly... millions upon millions of heterogeneous machines, ripe for the taking? Also, you would think that the same percentage of Apple users would be afflicted with malware that you find among Windows users... yet that isn't the case at all.
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@ "Office does not continue to exist only because of legacy formats."
Then perhaps you can tell us why Microsoft won't open the file specifications for its legacy formats? What business justification can you give for spending $150-$600 a seat on something that --90% of the time-- only opens .doc and .xls files?
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/P
2) There are alot of other companies offering free antivirus software, AVG, Clam AV, and many more none have yet to push Symantec, Mcaffee, Trend, Kaspersky or any others out of the retail market or put them out of business. If MS manages to do this it will take alot of time.
WordPad native files are not compatible, nor portable, nor can they read/write .doc files.
I suspect that Microsoft is correct when they say that "a majority of consumers around the world do not have up-to-date antivirus, antispyware and antimalware protection." That's a Bad Thing that needs to be corrected, one way or another.
I mean, if you're the commercial company chosen by Microsoft to provide this free product, how hard are you going to work after the contract is signed? They can put performance requirements into the contract all they want, but that didn't work with Onecare, and it's not going to work here.
penguins will dance on balmer's carcass.
lol, nice one
You get the idea.
OpenOffice has been used in my firm (8 people) for the past 5 years. The firm I was with previously didn't "trust" a company that was "giving" away a free "product." Of course, I think they "saw the light" when Massachusetts adopted the format (and OpenOffice, on the side) since that firm was IN Mass....
My firm uses old formats, new formats, drop-down text boxes, and we have NO problem with formats. There are other free alternatives if you need more "conversions."
Enterprise uses Word, etc. not because it is cost effective, etc. but because they are "afraid" of having to retrain, etc. their staff to use a "new" and "different" product. I hate to break it to everyone, but OpenOffice runs just fine and has not let me down once.
I take that to the bank every day.
Just because others can't see what is "right in front of them" and continue to use "Office" and similar products does not mean the "others" are less functional.
Competition is good, however. Imagine if the "paid" versions went out of business. The "free" versions might bet more difficult to install, etc. since much of the "funding" with some of these firms (not oppenoffice in my opinion) is on support for the OSS. Not so "open" if I have to hire them to install, configure, etc...
I still use OpenOffice though. I find it much easier to use and for some reason it feels faster.
- by a5a49708 November 21, 2008 12:13 PM PST
- I'm a PC user. I have never had the opportunity to try a MAC. I have a lot of production apps rather than creative ones, which Windows handles really well. I have changed most of the Windows software offerings to others, however. I replaced Windows Media with Winamp because I like it better. I disposed of Outlook Express for Thunderbird, and I prefer Firefox to Internet Explorer. I shut down the Windows Firewall as I greatly prefer Symantec's Norton Internet. I also prefer Word Perfect to MS Word and found Quattro Pro to have much less of a learning curve. I have also found that the Open Office spreadsheet would do certain things that neither of the other two would do.
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(38 Comments)I had to replace all of my peripherals and some of my software for the XP forced change, and have refused to go through the same expense and aggravation for Vista. It is a duty of an OS provider to ensure that third party apps and hardware providers have the time and information to develop drivers. Microsoft doesn't care about that.
I resent being told that I need a Malicious Software Removal Tool, or Windows Defender. Some of their security junk and hotfixes have made games and applications unusable for no good reason. I don't trust the Windows firewall for a minute, and the letters are coming off my Microsoft ergonomic keyboard.
So, having said all that, it will be a very cold day in Hades before I allow a Microsoft anti-virus product on my precious computer! Greed is bad enough without incompetence.