| Security vendors answer
Microsoft
16 February, 2006
By Dave Chappelle
With the announcement that Microsoft is entering the consumer
security market, one could easily feel sympathy for security
vendors that have been making decent profits fixing what until
recently Redmond has seemed unwilling to do. But is that really
the case?
"Microsoft for some time now has talked about getting
into the security business," said Jack Sebbag, Canadian
general manager and vice president of McAfee.
"Every time they do our stock takes a hit. This is actually
the first time our stock didn't take a hit as result.
McAfee is among other security vendors that have anticipated
Microsoft getting into the security market.
"However, we've been doing this since the late 1980s
with our anti-virus and desktop firewall," said Sebbag.
"We've expanded to intrusion prevention and detection
at the host and network, anti-spam, policy enforcement, anti-phishing,
and wireless security, for the telco, consumer, and enterprise
spaces. These are all necessary, mature technologies, and
they're not things you build overnight."
Among customers and resellers there are two schools of thought
on the Microsoft announcement. The first is that who better
to fix the problems and secure the environment than the originator?
The second is that Microsoft cannot be trusted to write secure
software.
"Our customers are telling us that they're nervous about
using something from somebody who is responsible for so many
vulnerabilities," said Sebbag.
"At the same time, Microsoft may try to include it free,
and everybody likes something free. Our growth continues to
be huge quarter after quarter after quarter. The fact that
our stock didn't take a hit after Microsoft made the announcement
might mean that the market finally understands that McAfee
is a pure security player, and may be better able to serve
all the security needs of enterprises and consumers.
In addition to positive stock market reaction, McAfee is
not worried in the least.
"It'll be interesting to see how it plays itself out,"
said Sebbag.
"We'll continue to grow our sixth and seventh generation
products, while Microsoft gets their feet wet."
BitDefender is a relatively new player in the North American
security market.
"We're not struggling for a better position in the market;
as we don't have anything to lose from Microsoft," said
Mihai Radu, BitDefender worldwide communications manager.
"On the contrary we feel Microsoft will strengthen our
position. We offer such good service and reaction speed that
we'll maintain our strategy in the future."
Bitdefender is not after the same customers as Microsoft.
"Microsoft only offers basic protection, it has no features
at all, and it's really only for stupid consumers," said
Radu.
"Consumers who really care about security want more
than Microsoft is offering. We're offering the possibility
for consumers to choose their level of protection, and how
they want to be protected. We believe it's important to give
users this option."
Perhaps OneCare is for stupid consumers, but one might speculate
that this is still a pretty big market, and isn't that big
market therefore a better market to be in?
"When talking about security, that's a bit different,"
Radu said.
"There's a lot of thought about Windows window of vulnerability,
the time when a consumer remains unprotected. It's the time
from when a virus occurs, and anti-virus producers release
their first update to protect consumers. Microsoft hasn't
provided such good speed in updating its Windows Update product
in the face of vulnerabilities. If Microsoft sells many copies
of OneCare Live, it will be one more target. It will end up
adding to the long list of vulnerabilities and exploits that
target Microsoft products."
Recently Microsoft has detected Symantec products as spyware.
"At BitDefender we had the same situation in 2005, and
even last month," said Radu.
"And they fixed it in one week. It's part of Microsoft
flexing its muscles and displaying its tactics in the industry.
In the anti-virus industry the best reaction time is from
two to 10 hours. Do you actually believe that Microsoft will
succeed in updating its products in two hours?"
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