MS Destroys the Consumer AV Market: Or Did They?

In Nov 2008, Microsoft announced that they are going to start offering free anti-virus/spyware/trojan/rootkit protection. Say bye-bye to Symantec and Mcafee’s cash cows. It looks like it took about 5 years to make it happen assuming they are using the technology they aquired back in 2003 via GeCAD.

So the big question is how long will it take them to go free or alomost free on the enterprise market. My guess late 2009 or early 2010 based on this acquisition.

How good will it be? Who the heck knows but competing against free is always hard. It is really hard when people already hate buying anti-* software. Why buy that when I get this for free from MS.

Last qustion is how are Symantec Mcafee and Trendmicro, et. al. going to recoup all that lost revenue? I have not looked lately but not long ago home and SMB markets where major piles of cash for those companies. So the smart ones will ook at other aquistions to bolster there bottom line. I don’t think it can be just one, they are going to have to go on a bit of a spending spree or die.


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