OneCare Faces Some Competition

Did anyone doubt that Microsoft would face some competition in the anti-virus security space with the release of OneCare? Is this really news?

Symantec’s Norton 360 and McAfee’s Falcon both will offer services similar to OneCare, which launched on Wednesday, promising protection against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software as well as help with improving PC performance.

I’ve posted previously on this topic before and shared that I haven’t been overall pleased with any of my experiences with Norton or McAfee products. My preferred anti-virus software as of late as been Computer Associate’s eTrust product.

Did you catch the name of Norton’s product? Norton 360? You’ve got to think they do that on purpose. What’s the strategy behind a move like that? Are they trying to play off the momentum of the Xbox 360? Why else would they do it? Symantec’s product was previously known as “Genesis”, another game platform! What’s the deal?

I was just having a conversation yesterday with someone though and we began questioning why in the world anti-virus and anti-spam or anti-phishing wasn’t always offered as a single, one-application solution? It seems to me any of these items are an attemp to infiltrate either my computer directly or my personal information via my computer. In line with those thoughts then are why not include firewall protection in that solution too. All of them are about “SECURITY”.

Now, everyone get ready for the anti-trust comments. If there was any software package that should be absolutely integrated with an OS it should be that level of support.

Source: Microsoft OneCare Faces Challenge from Rivals