Security Software Makers Upset Over Windows Vista

[rusty charly]

Leading security software companies, including Symantec and McAfee, are publicly pressing their concerns that Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system hinders them and steers users to Microsoft’s security offerings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/technology/04soft.html?th&emc=th

The security software makers have not made any antitrust complaints, but they have talked to authorities at the European Commission and to the technical committee that oversees Microsoft’s antitrust settlement with the Justice Department, executives at the companies said yesterday.

In Europe, F-Secure, a Finnish security software company, has joined American companies in criticizing the design of Windows Vista, which is scheduled to be available to business customers in November and to consumers in January.

The issues raised by the companies, in interviews yesterday, touch on broad themes of consumer choice and innovations that surfaced in previous antitrust suits against Microsoft.

[alfredo]

1. And you know it will suck the big one. Forcing

security firms out of business also cuts bad press. People won't know what level of threat they will be exposed to because there won't be outside companies warning us.

[reprobate]

2. The problem is an uneducated public doesn't know there are wonderful

alternatives out there. OS X is at least a year ahead of Windoze, and tho I haven't tried it, many say that Linux has become easier to install and use now.

And when you buy either of them you aren't supporting the Redmond Raiders, that voratious corporation that will buy anything it can't steal to avoid competition. In a fair business climate Microshaft would never have become the behemoth it has become.

For instance, you can buy a family license for OS X (five installations if I recall right) for about $150. Compare that to around $200 per installation for XP Pro!

Feed the Tiger, not the killer whale.