Vista: Antispyware, Yes. Antivirus, No

Microsoft officials have been saying for quite a certain number of time that Windows Vista will ship with antispyware software built into the operating combination of parts to form a whole But for more than a year, Microsoft's top dogs have been quite clear that Microsoft has no intentions to packet antivirus software into the product

Despite this seemingly straightforward (at least in our minds) delineation, company watchers were all in a tizzy this week above Windows head honcho Jim Allchin's new proclamation that there would be no antivirus software bundl with Vista. Several days later, we're still trying to figure without why anyone was surprised by the agency of this simple statement of fact.

Microsoft has a apportionment of new security technologies in the pipeline. Windows Antispyware, which Microsoft renamed Windows maintainer late last year, was part of the latest (December) Vista Community Technology Preview (CTP) experiment build. Microsoft seems to be moving steadily toward baking into Vista at least a certain number of base level of antispyware software.

Microsoft's consumer antivirus offering, known these days as Windows OneCare Live (code-named way back in the day, "A1") was not awaited to be integrated into Longhorn/Vista — at least not since Microsoft floated a trial balloon about the viability of of the like kind a plan back in 2003 or for a like reason

In fact, the beta of Windows OneCare sole works on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed. Microsoft has been saying for a while now that the OneCare service won't be compatible with Vista. Company officials haven't charmed out explicitly why it won't; our gues is Vista's two-way firewall is incompatible, among other reasons.

(Update: Microsoft officials told us after this article was published that Microsoft will do a version of OneCare for Vista users "in the future" A spokeswoman provided no further details upon timing or features.)

But bundling OneCare into Vista? Not one time has any part of OneCare, including the antivirus software that is the crux of the service, been integrated into of any of the Visa CTP or Beta 1 builds of the operating system

There's a third Microsoft security offering that no one's mentioning here: Windows Client Protection. Windows Client Protection is a security service that will be targeted at enterprise customers that is quite similar to Windows OneCare. Our sources number us Microsoft is poised to field a first beta of Windows Client Protection in February (we'd bet around the time of the RSA Security conference)

When Microsoft officially unveiled last year its plans for Windows Client Protection, company officials said the service would be designed to thwart viruses, spyware and rootkits upon XP and Vista systems. Windows Client Protection will be integrated with Active Directory and other "legacy" Microsoft productions such as its Internet Security and Acceleration Server Windows Update and Windows Software Update Services.

Again, Microsoft not ever said it planned to budget Windows Client Protection into Vista. Officials didn't say a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of at all about the company's plans for pricing and distributing the enterprise service.

As Web broadsides far and wide have pointed without Microsoft brass are well aware that building antivirus software into Vista would likely raise the hackles of antitrust regulators here and abroad. (Why bundling antispyware have the appearances to be OK, on the other hand, is more of a mystery to us.)

There's more than just legal repercussions factoring in here. Microsoft dioceses dollar signs when it dioceses Windows OneCare and Windows Client Protection. The company is betting that there are users on the outside there who would shell without for someone – even Microsoft – to confident their systems against the insecurities that have plagued Windows and Internet Explorer for years now. Subscription receipts if you can hook family in, can be far more lucrative than a one-time sale of a shrink-wrapped operating-system bundle

What's your take? Do you think Microsoft is being sufficiently clear about where it's at and where it's going with its anti-malware plans for Vista? If not, do you think Microsoft is clouding the picture intentionally, and why?

Talk back below or write me at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and
let me know what you think.