And it's Symantec that's crying foul that Vista will ship with its own AV protections, etc....

I still can't trust Symantec to be an 'authority', not with their efficiency with screwing with people's systems...

To be more explicit, as I understand things, Windows Vista will ship with Windows Defender (an anti-spyware piece). If you want AV, you'll be encouraged to consider a subscription to Windows OneCare.

Which, frankly, I'm fine with the option of at this point. I used to whole-heartedly recommend Symantec solutions, let alone Norton Utilities and PC Tools back in the day. No more.

Too many processes. Too many oddities. Too many funky things these days.

I wonder if you opt for a third party AV like Bit Defender9 how that'll work on Vista??

Well...it works fine on XP.....I'm hoping I'll be able to use it likewise on Vista when the time comes...

Symantec is so pissed at Microsoft for competing against it with OneCare, and for reducing the need for their software through the security advances in Vista, that instead of innovating on top of the Vista platform, they've resorted to spreading FUD to keep themselves in the news. Cause in their minds, if they're in the news, they're still relevant.

"Anything worth fighting for
is worth fighting dirty for" Good article, I agreed with most.

No company can do it all and no company should do it all. Spreading it around allows focus of resources, expertise and encourages innovation. The problem is, CEO's and decision makers of multi focus companies can not be experts on all the product they are deciding the future for, but they are by definition experts on being managers. And when they are trying to decide the future focus of mulit products and directions they can not make the same good sound business decisions a more narrowly focused company executive who really knows his product can.

Thing is here, Microsoft is more than a big enough company to diversify, spread its wings into areas it has not before ventured into, given its wealth, influence, multi departments managed by different teams/heads, endless teams of specialist software engineers and a huge propensity to encompass most if not all aspects of sofware development. If any company can do it, it's Microsoft!

The way I see it, Symantec is running scared and grasping at straws: firstly by suing MS to stop/delay the realease of Vista; by recruiting partners such as Yahoo to help maintain dominant market share, and by 'so-say' finding holes in Vista. The huge flaw I see in this scare mongering tactic is that they've only been able to pick apart the beta versions, which are not complete or true indications of what the final product will ship as. Had Symantec found flaws in the final product and been able to prove them, then maybe they'd have something to crow about, but they haven't and should consider going about the business of cleaning up their own act, making its own software safer to use by cleaning out the bugs/flaws which plague end users constantly.

Microsoft has been listening to consumers and making every effort to release a more stable and safer OS, and people are seeing that, so Symantec is doing more harm to its reputation and market share than MS ever could, simply by trying to besmirch Vista and delay its release. Symantec should just get over it and start looking to serve its current customer base a lot better, otherwise its own stupidity will see it shrink dramatically.

Symantec & Yahoo partnership http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/5081/53/