Vista security war of words escalates

Relations between Microsoft and the large security vendors deteriorated late last week, when the software giant accused McAfee of making misleading claims over its Vista operating system.

In a statement, Microsoft said McAfee was wrong to claim the software giant was failing to deliver on recent promises to work with the security industry.

Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of Microsoft's security technology unit, said: "It's unfortunate that McAfee's lawyers are making these kinds of inaccurate and inflammatory statements."

Fathi was responding to comments made by Christopher Thomas, a partner at legal firm Lovells which is being employed by McAfee, who was discussing Redmond's pledge to give security software makers technology to access the kernel of 64-bit versions of Vista.

Thomas said: "Despite pledges, press conference and speeches by Microsoft, the community of independent security companies that consumers rely on for computer protection has seen little indication that Microsoft intends to live up to the promises it made last week.

"We have been greatly disappointed by the lack of action by the company so far and Microsoft has not lived up, either in detail or in spirit, to the hollow assurances offered by their top management last week."

Both McAfee and Symantec have claimed Microsoft is endangering user security by blocking access to Vista. Microsoft, though, has argued they are just concerned about losing market share to smaller rivals.

Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK