The Impact Of Free Antivirus From Microsoft
By Rich
Well, they've finally done it. Microsoft announced they will be dropping OneCare and start providing antivirus for free to all Windows users late next year in a product called Morro.
I consider this an extremely positive development, and no surprise at all. Back when Microsoft first acquired an AV company I told clients and reporters that Microsoft would first offer a commercial service, then eventually include it in Windows. Antivirus and other malware protections are really something that should be included as an option in the operating system, but due to past indiscretions (antitrust) Microsoft is extremely careful about adding major functionality that competes with third party products.
The move to free AV for all Windows users helps on two fronts. First, it's a good way to navigate the antitrust allegations that will likely surface from the consumer AV companies. By not including AV with the default installation of Windows, it keeps the competitive environment open and provides Microsoft a good defense for monopoly allegations. Second, I suspect this will only be available to legitimate, activated copies of Windows, which provides additional incentive to purchase a legal copy and stem a small part of the home piracy market. This won't matter to the street vendors in China, but will encourage friends and family to buy their own damn copy of Windows.
The major AV companies have long expected this move. Both McAfee and Symantec have been buffering themselves through diversification and acquisition for the past few years. My personal belief was that Symantec acquired Veritas in large part to prepare for the eventual dissolution of the consumer AV market when Microsoft eventually builds it into the OS. Will this hurt? Absolutely, but they probably won't see any market erosion at all for 2 years, and the real pain will likely only start to hit in around 3 years. This gives them enough time to avoid suddenly losing 40% (don't quote me on that, I'm on an airplane and just guessing) of profits over 12 months. The real losers will be the consumer-only AV companies with portfolio diversification or a larger enterprise base.
I don't expect to see material erosion of the enterprise AV market anytime soon. Major vendors like Symantec, McAfee, and Trend are including growing functionality in their endpoint products, and improving central management. These additional features will likely protect their enterprise client base, although there may be some price erosion.
Any consumer oriented AV product will need to seriously innovate to survive once Morro is released. Users won't be willing to pay the $70-$99 a year AV tax once a viable, easy to download and use, product appears. Microsoft already includes a good firewall in the OS, the Malicious Software Removal Tool, anti-phishing, and other security controls. Vista is much more secure than previous versions of the OS, and it sounds like Windows 7 will actually be usable. This combination means that any consumer "AV" company will need to either protect against new threats not covered by Windows, or offer materially better security than the built in tools. Both situations rely heavily on the threat environment, making accurate predictions difficult. My rough guess is that within 5-7 years most consumer-level Windows users won't need third party desktop security.
I'm not sure if it will be in WIndows 7, but it's also clear that it's inevitable that AV will be included in WIndows.
In summary, this is good for users, will really hurt any consumer-only AV company, will only moderately hurt enterprise and diversified AV companies, and is an extremely positive step.
Unless, of course, they screw it up or the product is crap. Those are always options.
The flight attendant is giving me a nasty look, so it's time to upload this and turn off my laptop...
–Rich
