Cost

[Knox]

I am a huge microsoft supporter. I own the stock and
personally have benefited from the ecosystem of microsoft
products. I act as the sys Admin for a number of friends
and small companies.

It is vital that Microsoft not charge for this
service/product. Otherwise, the conflict of interest
between making the base operating system secure and
having an income stream for the spyware product will
create a storm of problems. "They deliberately make the
operating system less secure so they can charge me again
for the security portion." will be the cry.

Please don't charge.

Sincerely,

Knox North

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I had a thought yesterday after having some experience with the product on a
bunch of machines over a few days:

The real-time protection piece is really nice (negative comments here
notwithstanding!) I like being notified when something is added to the
startup axes, or when a BHO is added.

These are pieces that ideally should be in the OS, and I'd definitely like
to see them available for free.

Some of the rest of the product--the scanning and removal pieces, seem less
"integral" to me, and I might be willing to pay a small fee for them.

I tend to suspect, however, that it'll work differently--maybe a free
version for individual consumers, and a paid enterprise version which is
managed, for larger corporate use.

 

[Toby Richards]

It's interesting that I can't find anything anywhere about
whether this program will cost the consumer anything. I'd
really, REALLY like to know the answer.

 

[Paul L.]

The problem is other anti-spyware companies are going to start crying again
like the mess in Europe regarding Windows Media Player.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

The problem is other anti-spyware companies are going to start crying
again like the mess in Europe regarding Windows Media Player.

So what? Most of the commercial ones aren't that good anyway, and the best
ones are already FREE...

 

[Steve N.]

The problem is other anti-spyware companies are going to start crying again
like the mess in Europe regarding Windows Media Player.

Big deal. They've made their money by exploiting the vulnerabilities of
the OS from a different angle than the malware writers have and as a
direct result of. Smart business will move on.

Steve

 

[Paul L.]

RealPlayer (both free and commercial version) sucks too but they were able
to force Microsoft pay 500 million dollars and offer a "slim" version of
Windows in Europe. Oh yeah it's not just in Europe countries, there are a
bunch of anti-trust lawsuits flying around in the US too.

I'm not on either side but I don't believe Microsoft is gonna intergrate
AntiSpyware into Windows because they will get sued again for sure.

 

[Tony]

There's a difference between "integrated" and "free".
While MS would certainly get shouted at if they BUNDLED
this product with the O/S... there's nothing that says they
can't offer it as a free download, just like so many other
AS vendors do.

It's not free that's a problem, it's bundling.

 

[Microsoft private]

I understand that at a recent security forum, Microsoft announced this tool
will be free along with updates.

Thank you, Microsoft!