The Biz of Coding

Microsoft Corp. releases OneCare, Symantec & McAfee Promise a Fight

by Ujwal Tickoo on June 2nd, 2006

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has announced its US $ 50 per annum Security & Back up service Windows Live OneCare for the US market. The product is clearly for very small businesses and home PC users.

The service is available only on Windows XP and has the following 5 features:

1. Antivirus
2. Antispyware
3. Firewall
4. Performance Tune-ups
5. Data Backup & Restore

50 dollars will cover 1 year of service and upto 3 PCs. A free 90 day trial is available also. OneCare is only for desktop PCs not Servers and a user can purchase multiple subscriptions (50 dollars each to cover more than 3 PCs). 

Stung by the announcement security giants Symantec Corp (SYMC) and McAfee Inc. (MFE) have vowed to respond aggressively. Symantec Corp is readying its Norton 360 product to release this fall; while McAfee plans to release Falcon this summer.

Inherent in Microsoft’s current plan are limitations that Symantec and McAfee can exploit. Here are the limitations in Microsoft’s plan:

Microsoft is focusing right now only on Windows XP — Symantec and McAfee not only have products for previous versions of Windows; but they can continue to serve other OS customers like Apple Computer Inc.’s Mac OS X.

Microsoft is right now only in the US markets — Symantec and McAfee are already selling their products world-wide

Microsoft pricing and plan is focused on home users — Symantec and McAfee are already selling their products to corporate customers — where there is less piracy and big money.

As long as Microsoft’s OneCare is not bundled FREE with Windows, both Symantec and McAfee are safe. If Microsoft decides to do a Netscape on Symantec and McAfee then a painful story will be repeated again. I don’t know what will stop Microsoft from saying that backup and security are fundamental OS services, so these should be free. I am sure many consumers will like free products and so they will jump on the free OneCare. However, that will be the death of Norton Antivirus and MaAfee’s antivirus businesses.

POSTED IN: McAfee, Microsoft, Norton, Symantec