You will definitely have heard that we change our Anti-Malware Strategy: We recently announced that we will stop selling Windows Live OneCare and that we will launch a quality no-cost solution code-name “Morro”. There was quite some coverage on that but unfortunately part of the coverage was inaccurate or simply wrong.
Let me give you some thoughts on that. If you look at the Security Intelligence Report we launched recently and the Malware Infection Rate we publish in there, it is quite obvious that – as a rule of thumb – the less mature a market is, the higher is the infection rate. This is the map of EMEA:
Last week I was in the Gulf region and was asked often, what can an end-user do to protect him/herself. This answer is pretty easy:
- Switch on your Firewall
- Update your Software (not “only” Microsoft)
- Run and Anti-Malware software and keep it up to date
Unfortunately, point 3 is often not followed because people do not want or can not afford to pay for anti-malware protection. In order to increase trust in the Internet, something has to change to secure the ecosystem – therefore we offer core anti-malware solution at no cost in the future.
I know that there was a lot of fuzz on the Internet, that we do this because we failed etc. This is nonsense. OneCare is a great product and the AV engine in there is world-class, getting different certifications like VB100 and West Coast Labs since quite a while. It will be the same engine as we run in Forefront Client Security – as I said: a world-class engine.
If you want to understand the facts on the announcements you should read the OneCare Team Blog: Facts about OneCare
Roger
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