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Last November when Microsoft announced they were pulling the plug on Windows Live OneCare (actual last sale date June 30, 2009), they promised a new free antivirus offering for Windows codenamed "Morro" in the 2nd half of 2009. Today, Reuters is reporting that a Morro beta is coming soon:
A Microsoft spokesman said on Wednesday that the world’s biggest software maker is testing an early version of the product with its own employees. Microsoft would "soon" make a trial version, or product beta, available via its website, he added, but declined to provide a specific date.
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Microsoft has said that Morro will offer basic features for fighting a wide range of viruses, which would likely make it comparable to low-end consumer products from Symantec and McAfee that cost about $40 per year.
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Symantec shares fell 0.5 percent on Nasdaq and McAfee fell 1.3 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, while Microsoft was up 2.1 percent.
Microsoft is billing Morro as a "public service," but I am hard-pressed to believe that will fly. Antitrust regulators – start your engines!
Steven Levy asks Who’s Messing With the Google Book Settlement? and answers "Hint: They’re in Redmond, Washington."
Last October, Google settled the lawsuit brought against it by book publishers and authors concerning its massive book-scanning project. The $125 million deal gives Google the right to store digital copies of the books, include them in its search results, sell online versions and license its book-scans to libraries. It also allows millions of "orphan" works (books still under copyright but whose copyright-holders can’t be found) to be included in Google’s program.
The only obstacle remaining for the settlement to take effect is final court approval. Given a case of this scope, it’s not too surprising that a number of interested parties might lodge objections or ask for changes. Nor is it terribly surprising that at least one party nudging its way into the settlement is an internet-issues-oriented group from New York Law School.
But what does raise an eyebrow is the source of New York Law’s funding on this matter: Microsoft.
Hit the link for the details – I liked the part where the chief investigator of the New York Law School project is James Grimmelmann who used to be a Microsoft programmer.
At a conference in February, Grimmelmann was discussing his views of the book settlement with a policy specialist of his former employer, and the Microsoft exec reminded Grimmelmann that the company has had a continuing interest in funding academic efforts.
And a timely reminder it was too, I’m sure. The hilarity is somewhat tempered by the uncertainty as to what the New York Law group will actually say in their brief, but I expect that their promise to request that the Court "solicit the opinions of the Anti-trust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission" gives more than a hint.
Microsoft gave up their own book scanning aspirations last May, but providing a little legal trouble for competitors is a time honored tech industry pastime. For another recent Microsoft example see Ashlee Vance’s article on IBM’s legal troubles over mainframe technology with Platform Solutions and T3 Technologies who were/are financially supported by Microsoft.
Microsoft’s deadline for responding to the January EU antitrust complaint about Internet Explorer has been extended to April 21 according to Reuters. Microsoft had no comment, but according to European Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd, the delay was requested by Microsoft.
Dawn Kawamoto at CNET reports that a source says that Mozilla has moved to formally join the European Union case against Internet Explorer that was revealed in January.
Mozilla has been granted a seat at the table in the European Commission’s antitrust case against Microsoft, an EC source said Tuesday.
Mozilla requested and was granted "third-party status," which entitles the organization behind the popular Firefox browser to receive access to confidential documents in the case and the ability to voice objections, the source said.
Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker voices the corporate discontent even if she is a trifle fuzzy on what should be done about it:
Last month the European Commission stated its preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.”
In my mind, there is absolutely no doubt that the statement above is correct. Not the single smallest iota of doubt. I’ve been involved in building and shipping web browsers continuously since before Microsoft started developing IE, and the damage Microsoft has done to competition, innovation, and the pace of the web development itself is both glaring and ongoing. There are separate questions of whether there is a good remedy, and what that remedy might be. But questions regarding an appropriate remedy do not change the essential fact. Microsoft’s business practices have fundamentally diminished (in fact, came very close to eliminating) competition, choice and innovation in how people access the Internet.
Swell (and I am no fan of Internet Explorer or the Web sites whose functionality is reduced for visitors using any other browser), but that is all water under the bridge at this point. The important question is what can or should be done about it now. The obvious answer seems to be that if the European Commission’s premise is accepted, then Microsoft should be required to ship other browsers with each copy of Windows, but I wonder if Baker’s coyness about remedies is actually part of an attempt to reopen the overall antitrust case against Windows.
