The Consumer Anti-Virus Royal Rumble Gets Under Way. Winners: Consumers
Microsoft’s entrance into the security market will shake up the stagnant anti-virus market. The appearance of Windows Live OneCare will force the consumer security market into a new round of innovation.
Yankee Group explain the significance of OneCare and describe five ways that OneCare could fail.
Winners and Losers
- Losers: Big AV players (i.e., Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and CA). When Microsoft enters a market, it tends to immediately eat up the market share of the big guys. Yankee Group is not saying that Microsoft will immediately (or necessarily ever) become the dominant player in this space. However, it certainly will gobble up a decent piece of the market—and that means less market share for Symantec, McAfee, Trend and CA. Therefore, in this case, they lose.
- Losers: Smaller AV players (i.e., Panda Software, Eset, Kaspersky and Sophos). One can argue that Microsoft’s entry into the security space will not affect these players. In general, consumers who buy from these players are a bit more tech savvy, will be wary of Microsoft’s security reputation, and are fed up with the large players in general. It could even be said that the confusion in the marketplace will allow these players to also steal a bit of share from the other big players. Yankee Group does not believe this will be the case. The new integrated security approach of PC health/care will resonate with consumers, and it will be difficult for smaller players to match offerings with such breadth of security functions combined with tight integration.
- Winners: Consumers. OneCare’s arrival on the scene will spark innovation in consumer security. And as we’ve seen in recent years, the bad guys (crackers) are pretty innovative themselves. It’s about time the good guys come up with some new strategies.
Read the analysis at http://www.yankeegroup.com/public/products/decision_note.jsp?ID=14796