Gartner takes Microsoft to task

Microsoft should be concentrating on securing Windows instead of trying to challenge security software companies, according to research firm Gartner.

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Microsoft has bought two antivirus companies and an anti-spyware company–the latter acquisition has already produced an anti-spyware application for Windows–since Chairman Bill Gates launched the Trustworthy Computing Initiative. That effort changed the company’s coding practices to make security developers’ first priority.

But Microsoft has missed an opportunity to make it clear what role it wants to play in the security market, by not stating its intentions, Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald said in an advisory published Friday. The company needs to “articulate whether it plans to be a leader in consumer and enterprise security solutions across desktop, server and server gateway,” he said.

“Microsoft’s overriding goal should be to eliminate the need for (antivirus) and (anti-spyware) products, not simply to enter the market with look-alike products at lower prices,” MacDonald added.

In the advisory, MacDonald predicted that Microsoft will launch a combined antivirus and anti-spyware product by the middle of 2005. That software will directly compete with established products such as Norton Antivirus from Symantec, he said.

“This move will challenge antivirus vendors that depend heavily on revenue from consumers–such as Symantec–and vendors that derive substantial revenue from upselling enterprises to antivirus product suites that include desktops and servers, such as McAfee and Computer Associates,” MacDonald said.

James Turner, security analyst at Frost & Sullivan, told ZDNet Australia that Microsoft’s security strategy is a “commercially sensitive” area and that the company is not obliged to reveal its strategy.

“The fact is that Microsoft have purchased a number of security-oriented companies–anti-spyware and antivirus. You don’t buy a number of companies for the fun of it. This is part of a long term strategy,” Turner said.

Additionally, Turner said Microsoft’s attitude to security has changed since the launch of its trustworthy computing initiative. He pointed to the company’s response to the recent attack on MSN Messenger.

“You don’t just judge a company by what they say, you also judge them by what they do. Microsoft’s recent clampdown on MSN Messenger to repair the vulnerabilities there is a clear sign that Microsoft can mobilize very quickly when something is completely within its control. If Microsoft was ignoring security, the market would punish it and so would the legal system,” Turner said.

Gartner’s MacDonald also rapped Microsoft’s decision to create an updated version of Internet Explorer (7.0) for Windows XP only, hinting that motive for the decision could be to push corporate customers into upgrade their systems from Windows 2000.

“The decision to restrict IE 7.0 to the XP platform also suggests that Microsoft wants to force users of older platforms to upgrade, if they want improved security,” he wrote. “If Microsoft wishes to be seen as a responsible industry leader in maintaining security for its products and its customers, it should provide IE 7.0 for Windows 2000 users.”

MacDonald said that Microsoft should rebuild IE with security in mind from the bottom up, rather than make “evolutionary” security improvements to the browser software.

The Gartner advisory concludes with recommendations that are likely to cause some concern to traditional antivirus vendors.

The research firm suggests that corporate customers demand that their antivirus provider offers an enterprise-class solution–including anti-spyware–at no cost by the end of this year. It also advises businesses to demand a “converged desktop security product with antivirus, anti-spyware, personal firewall and behavior blocking at a total price no more than 20 percent higher than what you now pay for standalone (antivirus).”

Microsoft outFirefoxed?

So there I was trying my best to get a midlevel Microsoft manager to take the bait.
“Does Microsoft now feel confident it’s found a way to slow the rise of Firefox–maybe even win back some lost customers?”

Earlier in the day, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was onstage at the RSA Conference in San Francisco to unveil a beta of an updated version of Internet Explorer, a Web browser that’s been begging for new security features–let alone a facelift–for ages.

Microsoft promoted the introduction as a big deal. Naturally, I thought my interlocutor would jump at the opportunity. C’mon, I thought, run some jive about how IE is all ready to rout those pests from the Mozilla Foundation once and for all.


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Instead I was left high and dry. All I got was marketing mumbo-jumbo about how the company strives to do good by its customers and that’s the ultimate payoff–and so on and so forth.

Maybe that’s the standard PR practice “going forward,” as the jargon-meisters are wont to say. But Microsoft wasn’t always so reluctant to speak frankly. In fact, the company was damn good at sticking it to the competition.
The competition from Firefox is forcing the company to step things up.

During the early 1990s rivalry with IBM’s OS/2, Microsoft pulled out all the stops to make sure reporters were convinced the world was a better place because of Windows. Microsoft’s marketing prowess came in handy because IBM had a better product. The reason OS/2 failed was because Big Blue was utterly inept at making its case.

Company executives were too high-minded to call a spade a spade. Instead, IBM excelled at putting reporters to sleep with mind-numbing recitations of all its customer advantages. Maybe it was a corporate culture thing, but Microsoft was faster, smarter and meaner–and it paid off. Management knew what was on the line: nothing less than control of the PC desktop and the potential billions of dollars in future revenues that would accrue to the winner.

A similar scenario played out later in the decade during the so-called browser wars. Microsoft executives had no compulsions about trashing Netscape–publicly or privately–to reporters. (Was it really true that Marc Andreessen was “a cheeseburger-addicted frat boy,” as I recall hearing during one singular briefing back then.)

Again, the stakes were high. Netscape sought to replace Microsoft Windows with its Navigator Web browser as the de facto application development platform for personal computers. Had the strategy succeeded, Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today would be pumping gas for a living.

History obviously worked out differently. IE ultimately caught up and then surpassed Navigator. The company’s aggressiveness also ran afoul of antitrust statutes and Microsoft wound up in a drawn-out court battle with the U.S. Justice Department.

Firefox poses the latest challenge. The Mozilla folks say they have registered more than 25 million downloads since the release of Firefox 1.0 last November. Not too shabby a performance, even if some of those 25 million happen to be multiple downloads. Full disclosure: Yours truly switched from IE to Firefox last fall and hasn’t regretted the decision for a second.

Microsoft’s brass remains low-key, but the competition from Firefox is forcing the company to step things up. The beta version of IE 7 for XP SP2 will be ready later this summer. For Microsoft, which fought tooth and nail over the years to keep the browser fused to the Windows operating system, this is quite a big deal.

It’s a gamble, but it’s also a sensible idea. The next version of Windows is due out sometime in 2006, and Microsoft is notorious for missing shipping dates for the release of operating systems. Microsoft can’t wait another two years to answer the challenge from Firefox. But if the interim browser update fails to stem the tide, get ready for a flood of verbal pyrotechnics coming out of Redmond.