Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft aka Marsha, Marsha, Marsha
Ellen Messmer, a very solid reporter on the computer security space, has a short post which references the Spyware industry and Microsoft's "D-day kind of battle over market turf." It includes a quote from Rick Greenwood, our CTO.
In the article Ellen mentions Microsoft's entry into the Spyware markets as a "declaration of war" on spyware vendors, which would include us at Shavlik Technologies. Microsoft, Microsoft Microsoft is like Marsha, Marsha, Marsha to a Brady Bunch fan like me. Sometimes we get tired of hearing about it, Microsoft makes great products and has lots of customers so they are doing things right, but there are many other vendors creating great software that customers are buying who are not Microsoft, one just need look a little deeper to find it. Its a bit too easy to jump on the Microsoft band wagon and assume they will crush every market they enter. (learn about Microsoft CRM to see how they "crushed" that market)
I do agree with Ellen that Microsoft giving away free Spyware on the client of Vista is a challenge to the consumer markets for Spyware, but the real market for Spyware is moving the corporate world. Things are changing there very quickly as the combination of security, help-desk costs and much slower computers is driving businesses to manage spyware. Our corporate customer focus groups are driving what our Spyware product does, we are being asked for deep clean up, admin level control, enterprise features such as machine grouping and reporting, fast database back-end support, large network support, remote site management all things Microsoft is not providing.
Corporate markets are looking for a professional product will full management and reporting along with integration with other security and network management tools. We are one of the few vendors to build our Spyware management directly into our patch management product (such as are used by MBSA) so companies can manage both patches and spyware with the same products. We are also going to tie spyware management with our Compliance product and our end-point security solutions to give unified solutions to corporate customers. All these items put us and the Spyware industry ahead of Microsoft. Companies look at much more the the initial price of software to measuring costs. Microsoft's free products, or consumer products, just do not have the features needed such as reporting, management control and integration with other products is what our customers are telling us.
Our corporate customers (we do not sell consumer products) are not comparing us to Microsoft, they are comparing us to the Anti-virus products because those products have the management tools needed. We tie patching and spyware together, the AV vendors tie AV and Spyware together. We will add AV management to our line soon to make the choice easier for customers.
On the topic of Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, it was 20 years ago today that I started at Microsoft during the first week the new Microsoft Redmond Campus opened. We started the Windows line in Building Two (out of four buildings, none of which were full at the time). I think now Building Two is on the termination list, 20 years is end of life span for buildings on the MSFT campus I guess. Much has changed in the industry in the past 20 years, but in many ways much is the same. GUIs are not that different, PCs are not much different, the only major change is we have gone from Bulletin boards and modems to the high speed Internet.
The Internet of course is a gigantic change - people can connect globally in so many ways, but we all still run PCs and Windows to do it. What will cause the next major change in the world of computing? Mobile phones? iPods that add in Internet features? Some sort of operating system level change must occur before we can stop saying "Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft" at which point Microsoft will go off the air and we will only see it in re-runs. Maybe that is 20 years from now?
Maybe I protest too much.
