Curious, did anything legal ever come from bundling Defender in Vista? If not, I won't imagine anything would come out bundling AV with the OS either.
-----Original Message----- From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 9:59 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: MS to give away AV/AS, discontinue OneCare in 2009 There is a difference between giving software away and including it in the OS. If they do the latter then I would agree with you regarding potential lawsuits, but I doubt that they would. They are very intentionally ripping all the "extras" out of Windows 7 and putting them on Live.com as free downloads, which is where I'm sure the A/M solution would go too. TVK -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 8:27 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: MS to give away AV/AS, discontinue OneCare in 2009 On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 2:47 PM, Tim Vander Kooi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't think that a lawsuit would go far, unless the courts are also going > to force AVG and the others to stop providing their products for free also. Well, IANAL, but my understanding is: The difference is that Microsoft also sells the OS. You *have* to run *Microsoft* Windows if you're going to run Windows. On the other hand, you don't *have* to run *Microsoft* anti-virus. But if Microsoft starts including AV in Windows, their competitors are at a disadvantage. In the world of anti-trust law, this is called "product bundling". Microsoft is generally considered a monopoly, in the US and the EU, anyway. See, for example, US v. Microsoft (1998). (Others may disagree, but the courts' opinions are what matter for this discussion.) In the US at least, monopolies are not illegal in and of themselves, but they *are* prohibited from doing certain things, including product bundling. So AVG can give away their stuff if they want, but Microsoft cannot. Or so I would expect a lawsuit from the AV industry to claim. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
