Comments on: A sea change for desktop security

Analyst John Oltsik says new vendors, new needs and a lot of product switching will open the PC security market as never before.

[Dragon Forge]

ahh - refreshing breeze of the obvious

First, and I apologize, I want to take major exception with your notion that ms will in anyway offer competiton in this market.

While oldersters still marvel with a critical eye at the IT market and how far we have come, a fresh set of views lay the fault clearly where it belongs. MS has always made claims about 'crash free', 'stability', robustness and resilency and of course "security", that fall flat far from the finish. Even knowing that they are the primary target has not helped them get it right and it will be quite sometime before you see me joining the vista gaggle.

The only way they might gleen any semblence of market share is if they take any sort of responsibility and provide "REMEDY" (put your money where your mouth is dept) for their products. And if the dismissing themselves from the ensurances that the driver market is ready for vista is any indication, they would rather leave it up to the smoke and mirrors excuses and subterfuge ms branch to dispense blame once those eventualities (breaches)[isnt life a breach?] occur, should any prospective customers be deluded by the eternal claims.

When you speak of mass changes in the survey for switching security vendors, you must admit that percentage wise you are not speaking of a very great number by comparison switching from symantec (ugg!) and mcafee, but the whole host of shareware/freeware and flash in the pans that populate the market. Either that or the advertised posturing of businesses wishfully trying to compound their concerns or displeasures with their current providers in hopes of being assured.

I see mcafee as a major force and any provider that can ensure some sort of 'preconditioning' to traffic (offloading any resource consumption and lag) as the bigger winners. Symantec's whine ware, clunkier i/f, lack of deals and consumer support as too inadequate to make much more of a serious run than that.

Encryption predictions are a give away and multi token systems, obvious.

User education enhacements a must and more intelligent front ends are just around the corner, such as analyzing what the users is doing, provider a higher level of intelligence and interceding appropriately without constant false 'concerns' requiring user intervention or responses.

[arluthier]

Don't discount MS' stiring of the pot...

I agree with most your comments about the state of security soft... but don't discount MS' ability to cause massive shifts in this market (at least at the consumer and small business level).

MS has a huge marketing advantage. Between this and name recognition... many common-folk (non- techie, non-security aware) people might jump on the known horse rather than the unknown. This will result in the real security companies shifting gears in advertising and security awareness. In addition to coming down on prices.

It amazes me the number of people that still do not have antivirus or any sort of security software. And act like it is no big deal... even though they are storing all sorts of private data. If someone was to tell em that the Big Giant (aka MS) software company will give them 2 years of security for a 2cents a day... they would jump. (regarless of how *good* it is)

[i_made_this]

Sea's Already Changed & our State Dept..

... is fascinated to note how many American users are shifting away from American security firms and toward top-notch foreign firms like Russia's Kaspersky Labs, and European firms like Grisoft and Lavasoft. Can't fault people and enterprises for switching to higher quality products coming from those foreign regions.

On MSFT's WLOC, I agree with the author - this useless piece of garbage security suite will continue to pick up sales momentum just because it's got MSFT's brand on it and it's cheap. Let's hope that MSFT improves WLOC to make it at bare minimum security standards compliant and competitive with the middle quality suites offered by its American competitors.

[JimmyJackFunk21]

Security

I agree with the author; true security needs to be comprehensive. Security suites need to include software for anti-spam, anti-phishing, anti-pharming, and even digital shredding. The first company that comes to mind when it comes to this Anonymizer.com. They are at the top of the list, in my opinion.

[joelkruissink]

A SEA OF CHANGE

THE TERM 'SECURITY' IS STILL UNREASONABLY AMBIGUOUS EVEN WHEN IT IS PART OF A CONSUMER PRODUCT ARTICLE.
THE MORE PRECISE INDUSTRY TERM 'TRUST' PROVIDES THE AUTHOR A TERM THAT HAS MORE PRECISE GRAMMAR AND IS STRUCTURED WITH A SET OF INDUSTRY ACCEPTED TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS.
IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT CONSUMERS SHARPEN THEIR PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THEIR MANAGEMENT OF THE UTILITY OF THEIR COMPUTING TOOL.
THE TERM 'TRUST' EXPLICITLY DEFINES THE ROLES OF THE COMPONENTS, PLAYERS AND COMPONENTS THAT CONSUMERS REFER TO IN THEIR QUEST FOR 'SECURITY'.
A PERCEIVED SECURE HARDWARE/OPERATING SYSTEM WITH 'SECURE' OPERATING ENHANCEMENTS-NORTON, ETC. DOES NOT NECESSARILY PROVIDE THE DESIRED AND DEFINED LEVEL OF TRUST.
CAVEAT EMPTOR-- KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE AND KNOW IF THAT MEETS YOUR EXPECTATIONS

JK