Microsoft recently made some major changes to the Vista code to increase stability and create a more secure operating system.

This is the “new” Microsoft. More secure, stable, and able to do anything that (*cough*) Mac OS X can. To be honest, I like this shift and borrowing (to use the term lightly) provides the seeds for innovation.

To help improve security, MS is going to provide users with a product called Windows Live OneCare. It is a anti-virus/spyware scanner with some extra bells and whistles. (Windows already has a defragmenter, do I need repackaged it in this product??)

Here’s the catch. It’s $49.95 per year. Now don’t get me wrong, you have to pay for Symantec’s anti-virus too. But Symantec doesn’t write the OS code, they exist because MS can’t do it securely.

My point is why not just include OneCare with Vista? Users are paying (alot) of money already. Not only that, but home users will not pay for OneCare, because they don’t care. How many people do you know that just use whatever anti-virus that Dell preloaded on there, only to ignore expired definition update warnings after the free 6 months?

Then your friends call and ask you to fix their computer.

If OneCare is automated to update and scan automatically, then home users are covered. Less security problems gives you a better rep, and helps in dealing with the corporate market. I’d say, “just write better code,” but that isn’t going to happen.

Don’t play their game MS. Look from at other OSes you are already taking ideas from. How much money do you think Symantec makes from its OS X anti-virus scanner?

How much money do you think you’ll make from offering a product no one will pay for? How much more “secure” will that make Vista? The only way users will pay is with crashed hard drives, stolen data, and all sorts of headaches.

Here is an opportunity where MS goals meet consumer ones. MS wants to provide a more secure OS, “borrow” ideas, stifle competition (what company doesn’t deep down)…and ultimately generate more revenue. Let’s face it, the past few years haven’t been great for MS.

Incorporating OneCare meets these goals.

Users and businesses, want a secure OS too. A secure OS that takes care of itself, and doesn’t require mom and pop and the IT guy on the third floor to constantly be dealing with a varient of the Sober worm, and it would be nice that people wouldn’t be required to buy other anti-virus products to patch an expensive OS (hmm…lawsuit?)

Incorporating OneCare meets these goals too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 at 3:43 pm by Anil Polat and is filed under vendors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.