European rivals turn wary eye on Microsoft

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In addition to a firewall, which was also part of XP, Vista will include anti-spyware software called "Windows Defender" and a new Windows Security Center that tells people the status of the protection on their PC. Security companies sell competing products.

Some of Microsoft's rivals have publicly complained about a feature called "PatchGuard" in the 64-bit version of Vista. Critics claim the feature locks out helpful security software, while Microsoft says it is designed to guard core parts of the operating system against attacks.

Meanwhile, other concerns that Panda, among others, have raised include the possibility that Microsoft could use its huge presence on desktops to promote its own security software. For example, it already advertises Windows Live OneCare on the default "Welcome Center" in Vista, which appears after the PC starts up.

Lunch invitation
In addition, Microsoft's own security products could benefit from better access to Windows. After all, the people who develop those products work in the same place as those who are building the operating system, several security companies pointed out.

"They will use any trick they can to link their security products to the operating system. Not everybody will be on an equal footing," Franco said. "They are in a better position to align their operating system and their security applications. They have the original access, not the early access."

"(Microsoft) will use any trick they can to link their security products to the operating system."

--Josu Franco, director of corporate development, Panda

Microsoft, however, argues that its own security product teams are on an equal footing with third-party software makers.

"We're not treating OneCare or Forefront differently than we're treating them. They're getting the same level of access," Robinson said. "Anything that OneCare or Forefront is using, any third party has access to that as well."

Rival security software makers are even welcome to come eat lunch in Microsoft's cafeteria and meet the product teams, she said.

"There is the fact that we are Microsoft and we're all sitting here in Redmond, but at the same time we do give access to ISVs (independent software vendors) here on campus, and they can come at any time to meet with the different product teams as well as have lunch in our cafeterias," Robinson said.

But Panda's Franco feels partners have been "fooled" too long by Microsoft's talk of partnerships. "If you really want better consumer security, there should be trust between Microsoft and its partners in security. Right now, Microsoft being a competitor, how do you build trust? There are too many conflicts," he said.

Playing fair
Sophos is a Microsoft partner and works with the company on several products. Munford believes Microsoft won't engage in any anticompetitive practices--it is more interested in selling Windows and Office, not security software, he said.

"I would say that Microsoft is very conscious at playing fair and making sure that what they are doing in the operating system does not give any unfair advantage," he said. "Microsoft is open to dialog with security vendors. At the end of the day, Microsoft is not interested in putting security vendors out of business."

Indeed, Microsoft doesn't intend to harm anyone in the security industry, analyst Raschke said. It has been forced to address security, he said, "or their products would not take off. Security is often the No. 1 inhibitor."

Computer security in depends on variety and innovation in security software, Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told CNET News.com earlier this month.

"Microsoft's design of the security features in Vista should not put this diversity and innovation at risk. This might occur if reputable third-party security vendors, which have proven experience in addressing security problems, are prevented from competing on an equal footing," he said.

Panda has presented its case before the European Commission, but Franco would not say whether the company has filed an official complaint.

F-Secure has not yet spoken to the regulators, Siilasmaa said. "We trust Microsoft will do the right thing, and if they don't, everyone will be talking to the Commission," he said. "I believe that Microsoft will come to understand and accept that, and they will change some of the plans they have regarding Vista."

[technewsjunkie]

Microsoft knows better than than us

Thanks, Big Brother.

[free_people]

Because they have real democracy in EU

The reason that European commission is able to impose real sanctions on Microsoft and make it pay those sanctions is because they have real
democracy in Europe. It is because the European governments 1st work for the benefit of their citizens and then Big corporations/media, whereas in US the government 1st works for the benefit of Big (wall street backed) corporation and at the distant 2nd place for it's citizens.

To see this point, consider the fact the people in USA still don't even have Universal Health care!
No European government would last 6 months in power if it was omitting to provide its citizen
with such a basic service. You have to go to real pathetically poor countries, such as Angola, Gahana, Bangeladesh, etc. to find other examples of countries that do not provide universal health care to their citizens. To put things into perspective of how un-democratic this is: more Americans die (every few days) from lack of health care than died in Sep/11/2001!
Now I can give you another 1000 examples of how un-democratic the US is compared to European
countries, but the example of lack of Universal Health care is all the room I have here.

The question is then, how is it possible that the US is so un-democratic? How do the powers to be in US get away with this lack of democracy?
How come there are not demonstrations in US streets to replace their un-democratic government
with a democratic one, as there are all the time in European countries? The answer is that the US media is controlled by a handful of people, who have "brain washed" the people into gullibility and not knowing what is the truth anymore.
And the US media is not just WallStreet Journal, CNN, CBS, etc.but it is also Hollywood,
Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, etc., it is this oligopoly that wants to control all "eye balls" worldwide.


So EU indeed needs to take the actions that it has taken against Microsoft and in fact
take further actions to protect it's economy/culture from being controlled by US media oligopoly. Less EU wants to end up being as un-democratic and as fundamentally poor as US and it's citizens are. Again keep in mind that the US is so pathetically poor & undemocratic that it's citizens do not get Universal Health care, in fact more than 45 Million have NO health care at all, and more die of lack of health care (every few days) than were killed during 9/11 but when you turn on US media, from CNN to Yahoo to Google (News) all you read about is "Killing", "Terrorist", "9/11" and etc. having
to do with War & Killing, which is a clear attempt at brain washing. Now, does Europe or for that matter rest of the free world wants to have its information "eye balls"
limited to this country which is and will be the case if we allow the US media monopoly to continue
and lets not be mistaken that a key part of this monopoly is Microsoft, Yahoo & Google.

[cary1]

EU too is helping corporates

You brought up an interesting point. But think about this....

Did the citizens of EU protest against Microsoft for including WMP and other software in their OS? Were there any protest march on streets of EU?? NO... because people don't care and it hardly makes any difference to people.

So yes, it's the corporates for which EU is fighting Microsoft for, not the citizens. Citizens won't benefit from this decision unless EU distributes the fine collected from MS among them. The worst part is that some of the corporates EU is fighting for are actually US based.

[mwendy]

Ever try electing a bureaucrat...

...when this happens, then you've got "true" democracy.

I know in the U.S. you can't vote out the regulator directly - you have vote for the Presdient, hope his/her party wins; hope he/she changes the guard; hope he/she can, by changing the guard, change the career bureaucrats. That's how administrtative democracy works stateside.

I didn't know the process was different in the EU - more direct. How cool. I gather Europeans can vote those that they like out. If that's so, then maybe it is better. Are you running, then?

I think you're focusiong on the ends that you like. Wait until the next Big Brother bureaucrat moves in and does something you really dislike - like mandate only proprietary software in government procurements. Then you'll be crying a different story.

[jabbotts]

same old post

I've seen that comment word for word a number of times. Quit with the copy and paste spam and respond to the article directly if you must.

[HecticDialectics]

Completely Off-Topic

This has absolutely nothing to do with democracy. The EC is a regulatory board. The people of Europe are not voting on the outcome.

Furthermore, a free health care system is not a requirement for a country to be democratic. Americans realize that they would have to pay absurd tax hikes to pay for a "free" healthy care system. If a majority of Americans really wanted a free health care system, they would elect an official who agreed with them. They could also put it on this thing called a "referendum" where the people can directly vote for policy issues. Crazy huh?

[HecticDialectics]

There's NO Security Monopoly!

"Microsoft is trying to leverage its monopoly in the desktop to compete in the antivirus space, and we should call that abuse."

That is so absurd it's hard to believe anyone outside the anti-virus business is really buying this crap! This isn't Microsoft tagging WMP into all of their software to kill a business unrelated to the O/S. (Even that is questionable, but point at issue is far more broad than this case.) Microsoft should legally be able to do whatever they want to secure -their- operating system! These damn AV people are such a joke. They only have their jobs because Microsoft wasn't able to secure their software in the past. Now, Microsoft is working on making their software secure and all the anti-virus people are mad. Why don't they go complain about Apple not working more errors into their O/S code?

What next? Are graphics designers going to go run crying to the EC because Microsoft might make a cool background picture?

[bayny]

They have to fight

I agree with what you have said. There is absolutely not a monopoly in the security industry and there won't be unless these a-v companies hand off their business to Microsoft. These companies need not worry so mcuh about losign business as about keeping business. Instead of deliberating over the issue of monopolization, they need to consider what they can do to show consumers that their products are better and still very necessary. Essential Security Software produces an e-mail encryption program that works as an add on to Outlook and they have had to share the need for their product as well. www.essentialsecurity.com

[Captain_Spock]

"ISO STANDARDS" Here, There and Everywhere, Anyone!

That the EU operators of the ill-fated "Concorde" should leave it to "chance" for the safety of its passengers is like asking Microsoft to continue to rely on other OEMs to protect its Operating System while it continues to take the "heat" for producing "insecure" software products; well, just as it is in the airline industries where international standards have to be addressed; perhaps, the time has come when OEMs like Microsoft have got to produce OSes that meet certain international standards with regards to security. But, the bigger question is - why so much fuss over VISTA's "Security Plans" by Microsoft when the "WWW" is the OS as it is now known to be? Aren't there other "GOOGLE OSes" that can do the same jobs as VISTAS!

[masonx]

European Universal Health Care - not quite.

I can't speak to all of Europe, but my mother-in-law Germany is now paralyzed on her right side from a stroke because she could not get proper diagnosis and treatment in Bremen. Germany has both public health and private health care (for the rich). If you have public health care the Drs. will ignore you with complete preference to private patients. My m-n-l's symptoms were classic and were very treatable if she had been given basic blood thinner therapy in the first few hours and days of the symptoms before a complete blockage took place. Instead it took almost two weeks to get her in a hospital and then it was too late. She had tried three hospitals and the one she finally ended up in didn't even have an active stroke unit. If this is an example of European democracies universal health care - thanks, but no thanks we already have a health care system at least that good. By the way you may remember that German Drs. were on strike this spring for higher salaries. What we need in the US is far more Drs./medical competition, a public with better health/medical educsations, and less influence in the medical industry and Congress by pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

Our government represents what a democracy looks like when you have an apathetic and an ignorant public who doesn't take a proactive role in actively its electoral and voting processes. The Bush administration is the culmination of our electoral/voting decadence. This adminstration shows just how apathetic the American citizens have become and what levels of deceit, conflicts of interest and incompetence it will tolerate from its leadership - rather than have to take action to correct the system that put them there. How can we argue that we don't have what we deserve?

[free_people]

EU is not a Utopia, but it is far more Democratic than USA

No one said that the Universal health care offered by all European countries to their citizens is Utopia and it will keep you alive for ever!
But the fact is that they have Universal health care in all European countries, whereas at least 45Mill Americans have NO health care and as many of them our dying every 2 to 3 days from this lack of health care than were killed from
9/11! Now our government goes and spends $700Bill and counting to fight the so called "War on Terror" because 9/11 killed about 3000 Americans whereas again that many Americans die every 2 to 3 days from having NO health care.

And using the example of your mother in law, had she been in USA not would she have gotten ill & died but she would have also racked up $100,000 in bills too which would have wiped her savings/states. That is you can go to any
hospital in Germany or France, etc. and can have a brain surgery done and it will cost you about $50, whereas same thing in US if you dont have health
insurance will cost you $500,000.00 - unless of course you are in the US congress or Military, then you get same treatment/cost as the European
citizen get from their health care system.

And all this is possible because of the wall street backed media in USA controls
what people think, and lets not forget this media machinery is not just Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox, etc. but it is also Microsoft, Google & Yahoo. So EU is doing the right thing finally waking up to the threat that the US media
machinery poses to the real Democracy & resulting Quality of life that they have in Europe. Another way you can see all this is by the fact that the US $ keeps falling against Euro. Because once someone sees Europe for a few weeks,
then they realize what a piece of crap US has become, and it has become so not because US is fundamentally worst than Europe, but because we have no real Democracy here in US since the Big Media controls what people think.
Do we want the same for in Europe? If you say No, then high time to understand and fight the threat that US Big Media sources such as Microsoft, Google & Yahoo present.

But you may say, "hey, we need Operating System and Search engine...., what are we to do if we boycott Microsoft, Google & Yahoo??"
For OS, switch to open source OS such as Linux Ubuntu.
For search engine switch to Open source search engine such as Anoox.

[mwendy]

When esseential facilities doctrine fails - apply MSoft animus doctrine

What we're seeing is the attempted application of (largely discredited, very narrowly applied) essential facilities doctrine to Microsoft's business practices. Only, regulators can't adequately construct this theory because, well, Microsoft ain't an essential facility (think you'd find a statement to that effect in any publicly-traded OSS company's SEC, 10-K filing? Not! If you did, sell that stock short!!!).

So, what we're seeing as a proxy instead is application of the new Microsoft animus doctrine, something that's just shy of the magic words (shhh...essential facility doctrine).

This doctrine is exceedingly narrowly applied - to a whole conmpany and all of its products, now and in perpetuity.

By those that are shedding tears over this faux-situation, there is nothing that a market-leader like Microsoft could propduce that would not be shackled by regulators.

Certainly, that looks good in the short run to some competitors, but bad in the long haul for consumers.

[Captain_Spock]

"ISO STANDARDS"......

... So; in essence, as far as safety and security issues are concerned - companies like AIRBUS, Boeing, GM, Toyota, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba (with Seat Belts, Air Bags, Batteries - the ones that are catching afire...) should leave these safety and security issues for others to be concerned with. Then, which company other than Microsoft or the OEMs for that matter should shoulder/bear the responsibilities for the integrated security features of the products they manufacture! The travelling public the world over/90% market share will fly "AIR" EU Commission, "Air" F-Secure, "Air" Panda Software and "Air" Sophos if they feel justified in doing so at WARP SPEED!

[Markusx1]

Norton

Of course Norton is upset. Their monopoly on the security industry is going to be challenged. And *gasp*, they may actually have to hire competent English speaking tech support folks in order to remain competitive.

-Markus

[techstuff99]

EU is less democratic

That poster is spreading nonsense. In the U.S. a citizen can vote independently for important officials at national, state and local levels. In most of Europe you dont even get to vote for the President/Prime minster whatever party has parliment colludes to pick the leader. More important the individual governments are slowly losing thier power to the EU burecracy which isnt even directly elected by citizens!

[wbenton]

Europe Learns Quickly

Too bad the US doesn't catch on!!!

Recently, Symantec is doing their best to follow suite... but many are blastpheming Symantec when the real culprit is Microsoft!!!

Walt

[lucy_international]

Europe

The U.S. is crap compared to Europe you say?

Have you ever LIVED in Europe? Have you ever even been to Europe? I have... and unfortunately I am still here.

While the U.S. has yet to figure out it's health care system I would never be envious of governments in the EU. You will never truely understand what freedom is until you've lived here.

How about a government that makes it ILLEGAL to sell merchandise after a certain time of day and on Sundays? How about a government that makes it ILLEGAL to wash your car in your drive way or Mow law from 1 - 3 p.m.. Or do your laundry in your OWN house after 8 p.m.. OR taxes people up the wazoo to allow non-citizens live in your country and get paid more with every child that they have.

Do you know how great America is? There is no uptopian society, and we have issues of our own, but don't think for a minute that Europe is better off.