Will Microsoft Corner the Desktop Security Market?

Microsoft plans to offer a free antivirus product, code-named "Morro," in the second half of this year, when the company removes Windows Live OneCare from the retail market. But cautious consumers may want to keep their current antivirus programs, given Microsoft's dubious track record with antivirus apps.

Microsoft to offer free security software

Back in 1993, in versions 6.0 through 6.22 of the MS-DOS operating system, Microsoft provided a free, no-frills version of Central Point Anti-Virus (CPAV). The rebranded Microsoft Anti-Virus product had no update capacity and recognized about 1000 known viruses (a lot at the time).

Ten years later, when Microsoft started buying antispyware and antivirus companies, the commercial antivirus community looked on anxiously. Would Microsoft bundle its new security apps within the Windows OS? Even before the first beta of Windows OneCare appeared in 2005, McAfee and Symantec were talking publicly about their plans to go head-to-head with the software giant on desktop security.

Released as a stand-alone security product in May 2006, Windows Live OneCare included a revamped GeCAD antivirus engine (which Miceosoft had acquired along with Romania-based antivirus firm GeCAD in 2003), Microsoft Windows Defender antispyware protection, and the Windows Firewall, plus system diagnostic tools, backup capabilities, and a way to monitor home networking. OneCare felt less like a suite and more like a clever repackaging of free tools that were already available; consumers were essentially paying $50 for antivirus signature file updates.

OneCare did force changes within the antivirus community. McAfee responded in late 2006 with its McAfee Total Protection system, a suite offering home network monitoring and an enhanced version of the McAfee Internet Suite. The following year, Symantec introduced Norton 360, a more unified product that added online backup to Norton Internet Security.

Yet in the first independent antivirus testing of OneCare, organizations faulted Microsoft for missing known malware. Andreas Clementi of AV-Comparatives.org wrote in his February 2007 report that OneCare didn't meet the minimum requirements for participation. "Due [to] that, its inclusion in future tests of this year [will] have to be re-evaluated."

Performance has improved. Microsoft hired Vincent Gullotto from McAfee to head Microsoft's Security Research and Response team, and it later added experts from other name antivirus companies to its roster. In the latest On Demand scanning test from AV-Comparatives.org, Microsoft OneCare 2.5 scored as well as McAfee VirusScan Plus 2008 did.

All is not perfect, however. In May 2008, OneCare mistook Skype, a common voice-over-IP application, for a piece of adware, an embarrassing false positive. Nor has Microsoft dominated security software as the antivirus community once feared. Current estimates put Microsoft's share of the retail desktop security product market at only 2 percent.

In its press release announcement for Morro, Microsoft states: "This new, no-cost offering will give us the ability to protect an even greater number of consumers, especially in markets where the growth of new PC purchases is outpaced only by the growth of malware."

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