Ballmer unable to rid PC of spyware after 2 days
Microsoft takes on net nasties
double click | David Frith
JUNE 06, 2006
MICROSOFT executives love telling stories against each other. Here's one that platforms vice-president Jim Allchin told at a recent Windows Vista reviewers conference about chief executive Steve Ballmer.
It seems Steve was at a friend's wedding reception when the bride's father complained that his PC had slowed to a crawl and would Steve mind taking a look.
Allchin says Ballmer, the world's 13th wealthiest man with a fortune of about $18 billion, spent almost two days trying to rid the PC of worms, viruses, spyware, malware and severe fragmentation without success.
He lumped the thing back to Microsoft's headquarters and turned it over to a team of top engineers, who spent several days on the machine, finding it infected with more than 100 pieces of malware, some of which were nearly impossible to eradicate.
Among the problems was a program that automatically disabled any antivirus software.
"This really opened our eyes to what goes on in the real world," Allchin told the audience.
If the man at the top and a team of Microsoft's best engineers faced defeat, what chance do ordinary punters have of keeping their Windows PCs virus-free?
Ballmer and Allchin didn't get to be such wealthy executives by ignoring a business opportunity, so last week, Microsoft launched Windows Live OneCare.
In doing so it seems to have begun a new battle in the PC security war because antivirus software vendors Symantec and McAfee have announced new products to challenge OneCare.
Described as an "all-in-one, automatic and self-updating PC care service designed to help consumers more easily protect and maintain their PCs", OneCare is at present available only in the US, where users will pay an annual fee of $US50 ($66).
DoubleClick thinks Microsoft has a hide to charge customers $66 a year to fix problems in its operating software that shouldn't be there in the first place, but no doubt many will pay up if it means an easy way of dealing with the increasing flood of viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware and other computing nasties.
There is no news yet of a OneCare release date in Australia or anywhere else outside North America, but you can safely bet it will be here soon.
Microsoft does offer a free online virus scanning and tune-up service that Australians can access online, although its features are not as comprehensive as those of OneCare. Called Windows Live Safety Centre, it is at
http://safety.live.com.
Rivals Symantec and McAfee, which face losing big chunks of their multibillion-dollar businesses to Microsoft, aren't taking all this lying down.
Both have promised an Australian release of the rival all-in-one security products they are rushing to market.
Symantec has announced Norton 360, a consumer PC security service that will include online identity theft protection, backup and PC tune-up capabilities, and automatic updates.
It will work with Windows XP and the coming Windows Vista.
The full international release of Norton 360 is expected towards the end of the year, but Symantec is inviting would-be users to sign up for a beta version, expected in the next few months.
You can sign up at
www.symantec.com/norton360 betaprereg
McAfee is calling its OneCare killer Falcon and has predicted a release date sometime between June 21 and September 23.
It is expected to contain antivirus, anti-phishing, spyware and root-kit detection features, along with automated backups and network security.
How well Symantec/Norton and McAfee will be able to compete with the Microsoft remains to be seen.
As commentators are pointing out, Microsoft has a huge captive audience to whom it can promote the new service: the many millions who download its regular security updates.
On the other hand, Symantec and McAfee can play on the distrust that many disgruntled users feel for Microsoft and maybe undercut the $66 fee. The war has just begun.
As a footnote, Symantec has just issued an automated back-up and recovery program for consumers.
Norton Save and Restore is said to make it very easy for home PC users to preserve photos, music files, financial information and other digital data.
It sells for $99.95 and until June 20 can be bought only at Dick Smith Electronics stores. From that date it will be more widely available.
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