Will Microsoft Control the Anti-Spyware Market?

jasondubya asks: "With all the recent publicity of Microsoft's new Anti-Spyware product, I wonder if there will be any room in the market for other companies? After recent comparisons between with current market leaders showed large failings in their products, do they stand a chance against the behemoth that is Microsoft?"

Comments

Frankly...

[jd]

No. Not a hope. When Microsoft's Anti-Virus product is free (and, undoubtably, be bundled at some point) why would anybody buy or use another product?

This'll be no different from the Browser Wars. In that case, Microsoft bought Spyglass and used its browser, offering it as a free download. In this case, they bought someone else and used their AV products, offering it as a free download.

So far, there's not much evidence of any change in strategy. Enough so that several AV vendors are getting definitely twitchy. I'm not surprised. If they survive as long as Netscape did, it would be impressive.

Oh, and don't expect the regulators to step in, any time soon. It was hard enough getting them to do anything when the Democrats were in office. There is absolutely sod all reason for them to do anything now.

Finally, look at it from Microsoft's standpoint. They lost a court case in Europe, which harmed their share value and took a small nibble out of their pockets. With security being the current "watch-word", here is their big chance to take back some of that lost value. It'll also hamper European efforts to regulate them, as they can chown() technologies faster than the EU can ban them from doing so.