Windows One Care
It’s going to be interesting to see what Microsoft comes up with regarding their antivirus solution. They have already proven to be quite capable of delivering an antispyware solution. Microsoft’s antispyware solution currently is the best solution available for Windows.
I think they’ll do a good job with antivirus as well. Their biggest competitors right now are Symantec and McAfee. I’ve been using Symantec’s Norton Antivirus and Firewall for years now. But I’ve been using it because there is nothing better available for a standalone Windows client. As many of you already know, Norton Antivirus is slow and bloated. Even on the fast computers that I work on it takes a long while just to load the main Norton Internet Security window and to navigate certain dialogs. Not to mention the issues you sometimes have to deal with, if you’re not so lucky, of antivirus not wanting to start and receiving all kinds of weird errors, after which you have to check Symantec’s knowledgebase and follow procedures of how to fix it. But I still use it because, like I said, it’s the best option right now for a standalone PC. It works and it updates itself without me having to worry about it.
McAfee’s solutions for standalone PC’s are lightweight and faster, but you have to jump through all kinds of hoops just to get your software updated. It’s just too much work and very inconvenient. For the enterprise McAfee’s solutions are currently the best available though. Nothing comes even close to ePolicy Orchestrator.
So when we look at the standalone PC, there’s certainly room for improvement and I think Microsoft is going to use the weaknesses I described in Symantec’s and McAfee’s products to their advantage. If they can deliver a nice, simple, fast and userfriendly interface and an update feature similar to Windows Update in XP SP2, and ofcourse quality protection, they’ll give their competitors a lot of problems in the near future. It seems even their pricing is going to be much lower than the current prices for antivirus solutions.
Personally I would have wanted nothing more than for Microsoft to release their antivirus solution for free, like their antispyware solution for Windows. Ofcourse then you would hear the hypocrites in the industry, who are also complaining about the lack of security in Microsoft’s products, again about how Microsoft now wants to kill the antivirus- and antispyware industry. And now that Microsoft will charge for their security solutions, you’ll hear them saying how Microsoft wants to charge for fixing problems that Microsoft created themselves.
Microsoft has a fine line to walk with OneCare. The company is looking to charge users for fixing problems that are seen by many as ones that Microsoft itself created with the choices it made in developing Windows, Internet Explorer and other Microsoft products. It needs to seem trustworthy, despite the fact that its products are in dire need of a Trustworthy Computing overhaul.
For a better and more realistic perspective on security start reading here. So no matter how you look at it, Microsoft is not in an easy position. But I think they will greatly surprise a lot of people with their security solutions.
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