The Gorilla Walks a Fine Line

The big gorilla, Microsoft, has to be careful not to piss off their partners. It seems like Microsoft has always made their tools do the minimum job possible. Just enough to get the job done but leaving you to go to a 3rd party vendor to buy a full featured version of the tool. This is the fine line Microsoft has always walked& provide the customer what they need without cutting into the 3rd party sales and pissing off partners.

Well, Microsoft is slowly crossing that line in the area of security. They are adding stronger security features and tools to their product lines. Take Microsoft OneCare for example, which is a full featured security product. I figured it was a matter of time before McAfee, Symantec and the others got pissed off.

Enter Vista. According to this article, Vista is really making these vendors mad. They feel locked out of the game with Vista. I guess it was only a matter of time before this started happening. It's fine to give the user a partially useful disk defragmenter, calculator or terminal emulator but when it comes to security the OS vendor must provide decent tools.

The question is when is a gorilla like Microsoft playing unfair (antitrust) and when are they just providing robust products and tools to their customers? Why can't Microsoft make their own antivirus product? I agree that putting a security dashboard on the desktop that vendors (Microsoft's partners) cannot disable is crossing the line because it takes the choice away from the customer. But, is providing a robust antivirus feature in their operating system unfair? I don't think so, but would be happy to hear comments from others.

Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta

Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta is a desktop application for handling email, newsgroups and rss feeds. This is not to be confused with the Windows Live Mail Beta that is being offered as a browser application. Being a desktop application I figured it might be something to look at for its rich UI as apposed to the more limited browser-based offerings. I've used Outlook Express at home for many years, with both IMAP and POP3 accounts. I've used Outlook at work for many years, both with an Exchange server back-end and IMAP/POP3 accounts. I thought I'd check out this new product to see what it was all about. I'm also looking at Mozilla Thunderbird.

My first impression is that it sure has the nice "live" interface (see picture here) with nice colors and all. It has support for newsgroups, rss feeds, and can handle HotMail and other accounts via IMAP and POP3. I quickly discovered that once you dig deeper than the top layer you find that this is Outlook Express with a new face. The configuration forms are obviously based on the OE product (see examples here and here). I was even surprised when I checked the "about box" and it said it is version 8.

There isn't anything wrong with giving Outlook Express a face lift. Why reinvent the wheel? OE is a great little product and a good base to build this new product on, but I was personally disappointed because I was hoping for something new. I'm not sure exactly what I was looking for, but when I found out that it was just a new version of OE I was disappointed. I'm not knocking the product. If it's based on the OE engine then its going to be a fine product. I guess I am looking for an alternative to an upgrade to OE. This would explain why I'm also looking at Thunderbird.

You can see more about the Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta product by visiting their blog here or the Live Mail Desktop Beta page here.