Who would trust an anti-virus product from Microsoft?
BBC: Technology analyst Bill Thompson wonders who would trust an anti-virus product from Microsoft? Via The Scobleizer Weblog.
Who would trust it? How about the millions of home users out there who don't realize they should have an antivirus tool? The pain-reduction from having a default a/v program in place on the millions of home PCs connected to the internet is ostensibly massive. Who cares if it's not corporate ITs first choice--there are millions of people out there totally unprotected because nothing ships with Windows (or most operating systems for that matter). Eliminating a large portion of that at-risk population would dramatically reduce the rate at which common viruses propogate.
Now, how about buying ZoneAlarm or BlackIce or whomever and including a real firewall out of the box? Same line of reasoning as above, one of the reasons DDOS attacks are so easily to pull off and so difficult to thwart (to say nothing of prosecuting their instigator) is the massive number of unprotected PCs sitting out there off of always-on broadband connections just waiting to become some 13-year old's zombie.