Microsoft the anti-virus company: Could it really happen?

The security industry has spoken out on Microsoft's advances into the anti-virus market, suggesting, almost with one voice, that the software giant may manage to make in-roads into the desktop market, but should give up now on any hopes it may harbour of becoming a dominant player in the enterprise market.

Some say consumers and business users alike may not be able to make the mental leap required to welcome Microsoft into the market, suggesting the Redmond behemoth is too synonymous with security flaws to be taken seriously when it comes to security solutions.

Gene Hodges, president of Network Associates, said: "A lot of consumers are going to have real concerns about the company which is creating all the holes becoming the company which is patching and protecting these holes."

Hodges for one is unconcerned about his company's market share at the enterprise level. "Microsoft will make in-roads into the consumer market," he said. "But I don't think they are going to find much success working with the large corporates."

But Hodges conceded that Microsoft is unlikely to see the situation as clearly delineated as he does. If history has taught us anything it's that Microsoft won't be happy with a modest slice of the smallest pie in the shop.

"Of course, you'd be foolish not to worry about Microsoft as a competitor - but it's not in our top five worries," he said.

Alyn Hockey, director of research at email filtering specialist Clearswift, echoed the suggestion that Microsoft is likely to find most joy with the home user, citing the advantages afforded to the company by bundling software with future iterations of its Windows OS.

"A lot depends on the level of education for the user," said Hockey. "A lot of home users, who perhaps don't read the press, will just think 'great it's free, I'll have it' as long as it comes bundled in with everything else."

Paul Wood, chief information analyst at MessageLabs, said: "For small to medium sized businesses any Microsoft product could be a good one stop solution. The enterprise players however are still going to want to shop around."

It seems any problems Microsoft encounters will be in the perception of the next tier of users, and businesses who perhaps have first-hand experience of Microsoft's chequered security history.

Wood added: "I'd be very surprised if Microsoft was able to take a dominant position in the enterprise sector. The market is very well established and the major players are all very well known." However, he added that "stranger things have happened."

Clearswift's Hockey also put forward another reason why Microsoft made its recent purchase of Romanian anti-virus firm GeCAD.

"There is a cynical view that this acquisition will have appealed to Microsoft for a number of reasons," he said.

"While [the acquisition] is good for Microsoft in terms of increasing its intellectual property, it is also bad news for Linux users. GeCAD made one of the best Linux security solutions and cynics will say that Microsoft's move was aimed at deliberately scuppering anti-virus development on the Linux platform."