By: The move to “security as a service” may be largely a conspiracy to increase prices, but maybe it doesn't have to end up that way.
Up top here I should concede that I made a careless error in a recent column by forgetting the fact that Microsoft's OneCare includes a license to protect up to three computers, whereas the company's competitors typically make you get licenses for one at a time.
I actually had heard this and readers were quick to point it out in the talkbacks to the column (thanks).
Is this a good thing? Alex Eckelberry of Sunbelt Software doesn't think so, and from his perspective - as a provider of security software - having Microsoft come in and start a price war is a bad thing. You, the reader, have a different perspective.
I remember Comdex in (I believe) 1991, when Microsoft announced the release of Access for $99, a fraction of the $495 that Borland and others were charging for their products. At a party at that show I overheard Philippe Kahn of Borland telling a reporter, “I don't know who benefits from a price war in software.”
This from the man who made his fame on a $49 compiler, competing against (if I remember correctly from 1984) programs that cost in the $500 to $1500 range.
It was a good thing for customers that Microsoft set prices in a downward direction for business productivity software, and it can be a good thing for them if pricing pressures make security software more affordable. This is Microsoft's real goal.
For months Microsoft has been spreading the message that its research shows - and it seems intuitively true to me - that a huge percentage of users have no anti-malware protection at all, or have an old program with an expired license.
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Bring On the Security Price Wars
