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Anti-malware Vendors Stare Down Microsoft Threat
Captain Rose writes "Matt Hines at eWEEK has stepped up to report the other side of the story CNET inked recently on the perceived death knell that Vista will deliver to independent anti-spyware vendors. There's definitely a fight in store (David v. Goliath), though who knows how long we'll have to wait to see it play out now that Vista's delayed yet again. Is this a bit of foreshadowing on how the new Microsoft OS will address the self-replicating, zero-day spyware threats?" From the article: "Most industry watchers concede that it will be hard for Microsoft to easily displace the enterprise security businesses of leading vendors such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, which market integrated packages of applications to companies wishing to solve long lists of problems. However, for firms that are focused on only one of those problem areas, analysts said, Vista and the other Microsoft security products could pose a significant threat."
First M$ creates an entire industry focused around fixing holes in their OS. Now they are threatening to fix their own holes and that industry is mad at them?
It seems to me this is like horses being mad at cars for making them obsolete.
However, I am yet to be convinced that Vista will not require third party anti-malware support.
If Vista is as secure as we are being told by MS, why would it need anti-virus code from any source?
I'm guessing the biggest buyers of antivirus, firewall, and spyware detecting software will be knowledgeable users and corporations. Even if you're talking about AOL users with their default installs, AOL still had to make a deal with MacAfee.
My guess is that most corporations and users will turn off the bundled anti-whatever, and use what they trust. After all, should you trust the company that created the problem after they sat for years without doing much, to solve the problem?
I don't get it.
Since everyone will be running MS's anti-spyware program, the spyware folks will concentrate on defeating it, just like virus writers concentrate on beating Windows "security". So there will still be a market for other vendors, since they would hopefully be better at stopping spyware than MS' default option. And since there's lots of them, it's harder to defeat them all. Even now, it's pretty well accepted that you need at least two anti-spyware programs to catch everything.
leading vendors such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro,
AVG Free works quite well and has removed Trojans that Symantec couldn't.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, sure, they'll get rid of spyware. Just like they got rid of spam.
Arrrrrrr
Don't worry about that! They told the same about anti virus, web browsers and office suite!
Perhaps you should evaluate the logic of your statement?
Microsofts web browser put the competition out of business. (and got themselves in a bit of a legal battle too)
In the 80's and 90's Word Perfect was the defacto standard for an office suite, and Claris Works was popular on the mac. Then microsoft brought out it's office suite, and has all but put the competition out of buisness.
Not sure where you are going with the anti-virus, since Microsoft has never released one. But when they do, I'm pretty confident it'll steal the market share too.
The point i'm trying to make, is that while all of us know that plenty of non-microsoft products are becoming available, and are even better products in many cases, the fact still remains that microsoft obliterated the competition in all of these areas and only the FOSS community is able to gain any traction at all.
You gotta remember that just becuase you and I use FireFox and OpenOffice.org, doesn't change the fact that 99% of computer users are on Internet Explorer and MS Office.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
There's still a significant amount of NT4 out there too, but it's slowly being phased out (still get the occasional person who's IT people haven't certified SP6a yet and they're on SP3! Luckily this is getting rarer... IT moves slow in large companies).
W2k is still in the heart of IT running the domain controllers in many (possibly most) companies... W2k3 is gaining ground but is still not in the majority even 3 years after its release (based on our own marketing surveys, which cover a lot of companies in europe).
Vista isn't even in the planning stages yet. Not heard anyone even mention it or ask for support.
New OSs take time to gain ground in business. We had our first enquiry about Solaris 10 2 weeks ago.. and that was relased, what, about a year ago? That's against several thousand Solaris 9 installs.
we're supposed to feel sorry for companies that hooked their wagon to an unsecure ship? their buisness model is dependent upon MS writing bad software. well, not that that's a bad gamble, but...
maybe it's about time MS writes more secure software. besides, given the hardware req's for vista, there'll be millions who sill still run xp/me/98 for the forseeable future.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
That will hit some people. Not everyone, many not most, but some. Maybe then a bigger backlash will start. It will probably depend on if the anti-whatever software is free or not.
You've got to love the oddity of it all though. What if tomorrow Oracle released a version of their software that would randomly drop tables? Let's say for the sake of argument that everyone used it anyway. What if Oracle's solution was to sell you software that would catch that happening and instantly put your table back?
What if your Ford car would randomly stall, and Ford's solution was to give you a anti-stall upgrade on your car?
I hope Vista fixes a lot of this (I'm on OS X so it doesn't matter), because it is just mind-bending if you think about it.In what other industry (other than possibly government) would this kind of thing be accepted so well?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Just to be a bit of a contrarian (and ridicule others for their lack of ridiculously trivial knowledge,)
Anyone remember MSAV.exe? They never updated it, and let it die when they moved to windows 95. Kind of like when they let IE die after 6.0. Oh, and wqhen's the last time Word had a feature that wasn't wither copying a competitor, or a really stupid idea? (Like animated helpers.) What was new wasn't useful, and what was useful wasn't new...
So we'll actually say you're wrong on 2 counts - they can compete, but don't innovate or create good products - if they do what they did with IE, we'll have more bugs and viruses infecting the antivirus software than we did in the entire OS until now.
And, to paraphrase, MS Word isn't evil, it's just crappy, bloated sofware
I'm a concientious
And, because the DOJ actively stopped caring about the whole anti-trust issue and left it alone. This is because they were told by the administration they weren't interested in the case.
Someone better hope they have awful deep pockets -- if M$ takes away your revenue stream, and can make it takes years to go through court, and if the DOJ isn't strongly motivated to do something, those companies will be out of business long before they resolve anything.
Microsoft has taken away a lot of people's candy by doing such things and just out-waiting them. If the government is not going to intervene, it will happen again quite easily.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Mainly because many businesses will start asking the uncomfortable question about why they have to pay for an insecure software product then pay more for security software. I realize many companies are doing it now, but when the checks are going to different companies one can pretend you're buying network security. When both checks go to the same company it becomes glaringly apparent that you're paying for something many companies think should be included in the price.
I realize it must seem strange but I really think this will do more to highlight MSFT's insecurity than boost revenue. Because it's sort of like rubbing a customer's nose in the fact that the product they're buying is basically not secure. I'm guessing MSFT will end up bundling the package at a price not far above where they are now, especially for big buyers. The little people will, of course, get the corporate shaft but most of them are used to it by now anyway. After the XP Activation Follies paying for security updates won't seem like much of a big deal.
Not seeing a win here.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Windows includes a built-in defrag. I bought PerfectDisk when I found out it worked better.
Windows includes a built-in "remote desktop" capability. I use vnc for my remote-desktopping needs, because I prefer something multi-platform.
Windows includes a built-in terminal program. Back in the day when such things mattered, I used SecureCRT, because it worked better.
For those for whom the minimum is enough, because they don't have a critical business need for something better which justifies ante'ing up $$$, the MS-provided anti-malware solution will be better than nothing. The rest of us will just keep doing what we're doing, supporting the products we trust.
This really is a DIFFERENT case from the Office situation, because much of what drove the takeover by Office was a combination of "it has to read and write Office documents because that's what our customers use" and "most of the clerks we hire are familiar with Office, so let's standardize on that". Anti-malware UI and file exchangeability aren't issues, so this is much less of a threat. It *IS* somewhat similar to the browser case. I think enough folks have learned "the browser stagnancy lesson" and moved on to alternatives, that they know better than to espouse the MS solution in this situation.
I'm curious as to how they will define "anti-virus" or "anti-spyware" software. If MS releases a patch, or plugs a hole in its firewall to prevent infection, does that count? I see the 3rd-party vendors being forced to define their market *very* narrowly in order for their claims to stand up in court.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
These computers will be operated by humans. That is one security hole no one can fix. To us, it seems easy. We're programmers, pen-testers, geek squad members. We're basically lucky enough to have a hoppy that pays well. Not everyone thinks like a geek. Joe Sixpack doesn't give a damn how his computer works, and doesn't want to learn how it works. He just wants to browse the net, send e-mail, and maybe if he's feeling frisky put up a new desktop wallpaper. These people don't know what a "root password" is. They don't know what an "address bar" is. They don't know or CARE. Look, if a phisher just has to ask nicely for Aunt Sally's debit card PIN, what makes you think she'll think twice when we change "pin" to "root password", "firewall password" or anything else? Hell even biometric security won't work because she'll just slide her thumb right in there so she can get the latest hot ring tones.