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."

Comments

It's not Microsoft's fault for once

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Anti-virus companies, ironically, are very much like a parasite that only lives on a specific host. When the host disappears (pre-Vista versions of Windows), the parasite dies. Either they get lucky and they find a new host in the form of Vista with security problems, or they diversify in a hurry.

For once, you can't blame Microsoft for ruining an industry, and I can't say I'll feel sad if McAfee or Symantec dies...