Users gain from virus firms' pain

Microsoft's recent move into antivirus tools was timed well - it made smaller headlines than it deserved because of the current intrigues of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendors. While Baan and SSA were cuddling up and Oracle was doing unspeakable things to PeopleSoft, Microsoft made one of its trademark low-profile purchases, picking up Romanian antivirus vendor GeCAD.

Don't be deceived though, the acquisition will have a huge impact on IT security. You may not have heard of GeCAD - I hadn't until this month - but Microsoft has the ability to make its technology pervasive. The Jesuits said give me the boy until he is seven and I will give you the man. Microsoft's version is give me the buyer of the operating system and I will give him the application suite, the web server, the programming tools, the TCP/IP stack ...

If you own the operating system then you can dribble in a lot of other technology, a truism that was at the heart of the regulators' enquiries into Microsoft's business practices. Microsoft has already used its operating system to offer a piggyback to Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and much else besides. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that it is playing that old trick in antivirus software, with its talk of a planned subscription service for Windows users.

In fact, Microsoft has already played this particular trick once before.

Back in 1993, it caused a big fuss by folding disk compression and antivirus tools into DOS 6.0. Stac Electronics, the developer of Stacker, the market-leading compression software at that time, sued Microsoft and the affair ended with Microsoft buying a stake in Stac, and then Stacker faded away.

The antivirus move wasn't a success for Microsoft though: Microsoft licensed Central Point's antivirus software but the lack of a simple way to update protection meant that buyers stayed with alternatives.

The ability to automate software updates over the internet means that Microsoft's proposition today will be far more enticing. If GeCAD has a half-decent product then many IT buyers will apply the 80:20 rule of software that says getting 80 percent of the functions of the best product is a good trade-off if the price and packaging are right.

To achieve the kind of revenue growth the markets demand, Microsoft has to continually add more software to its portfolio. Only the regulators have held it back from making more purchases to enter more markets, and the GeCAD acquisition may be deemed worthy of attention by the trustbusters.

So Microsoft's entry into antivirus is clearly A Bad Thing for third-party antivirus firms, but the question is, is it a bad thing for IT buyers.

I don't think so. Loss-making antivirus vendors are rare and we're all paying through the nose for point solutions. Just as Microsoft saved IT buyers' cash by folding in other programs, an antivirus subscription service available through a Microsoft master contract will appeal to many of us.

Of course, if regulators let this one pass, Microsoft will feel it is a shoo-in to build more security tools, such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems, into products. That's tough competition for specialists - well hey, that's capitalism, folks. But bad for users? Surely we're all big enough to decide for ourselves.

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