4 ms·

Microsoft Recommends You Use a Third-Party Antivirus

5 points by sheldor 13y ago

smacktoward 13y ago
In their defense, Microsoft has a tough line to walk here. On the one hand, they have a responsibility to protect their users from risks that inhere from using their operating system. And we know from long experience that most users won't go looking for external products for needs like this, and most of those that will can easily end up with sub-par products because they're not sophisticated enough to judge what makes one antivirus program superior to another. So the only true way to meet that responsibility is to provide a strong antivirus solution with Windows out of the box, or as close to "out of the box" as it can get (say, via Windows Update or the Microsoft app store). On the other hand, there is a large community of third parties who have built thriving businesses on providing antivirus support for Windows users. If Microsoft's antivirus is too good, it would put all these third parties out of business -- why would anyone buy external antivirus products if Windows is already bulletproof? And while Microsoft would protest that it's only trying to look out for users, its words would be undermined by its own past actions. Microsoft has a long history of killing companies in the Windows ecosystem and seizing their profits for themselves by bundling a competing product with Windows itself. This play was used to kill Netscape and Stac Electronics (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_lawsuit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_laws...), among many others. So third parties could be forgiven for worrying that such a move by Microsoft would just mean Redmond was coming for them. Moreover, those bundling tactics were a key part of why Microsoft came under antitrust scrutiny in the 1990s. That scrutiny did major damage to Microsoft's brand reputation and contributed to the 2000s becoming their "lost decade" as they struggled to retool their way of doing business rather than pushing forward advances in their products. If they really did put their third-party security ecosystem out of business, it would risk renewing that scrutiny and starting that whole difficult cycle all over again. So while it's certainly not ideal from the perspective of Windows users, from Microsoft's perspective, the position outlined in the article -- that MS's antivirus product will only ever be a minimal sort of protection that doesn't overshadow the third-party options -- is probably the only position they think they can reasonably take. Which sucks, but what can you do? Years of gluttony lead inevitably to years of pain.
lewispollard 13y ago
Couldn't this just be safeguarding against more EU court cases re: monopoly/competition/etc when bundling software that has third party competitors?

5 points by sheldor 13y ago

In their defense, Microsoft has a tough line to walk here. On the one hand, they have a responsibility to protect their users from risks that inhere from using their operating system. And we know from long experience that most users won't go looking for external products for needs like this, and most of those that will can easily end up with sub-par products because they're not sophisticated enough to judge what makes one antivirus program superior to another. So the only true way to meet that responsibility is to provide a strong antivirus solution with Windows out of the box, or as close to "out of the box" as it can get (say, via Windows Update or the Microsoft app store). On the other hand, there is a large community of third parties who have built thriving businesses on providing antivirus support for Windows users. If Microsoft's antivirus is too good, it would put all these third parties out of business -- why would anyone buy external antivirus products if Windows is already bulletproof? And while Microsoft would protest that it's only trying to look out for users, its words would be undermined by its own past actions. Microsoft has a long history of killing companies in the Windows ecosystem and seizing their profits for themselves by bundling a competing product with Windows itself. This play was used to kill Netscape and Stac Electronics (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_lawsuit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_laws...), among many others. So third parties could be forgiven for worrying that such a move by Microsoft would just mean Redmond was coming for them. Moreover, those bundling tactics were a key part of why Microsoft came under antitrust scrutiny in the 1990s. That scrutiny did major damage to Microsoft's brand reputation and contributed to the 2000s becoming their "lost decade" as they struggled to retool their way of doing business rather than pushing forward advances in their products. If they really did put their third-party security ecosystem out of business, it would risk renewing that scrutiny and starting that whole difficult cycle all over again. So while it's certainly not ideal from the perspective of Windows users, from Microsoft's perspective, the position outlined in the article -- that MS's antivirus product will only ever be a minimal sort of protection that doesn't overshadow the third-party options -- is probably the only position they think they can reasonably take. Which sucks, but what can you do? Years of gluttony lead inevitably to years of pain.

lewispollard 13y ago

Couldn't this just be safeguarding against more EU court cases re: monopoly/competition/etc when bundling software that has third party competitors?