Windows OneCare Live
Microsoft has announced a subscription service for computer security and backup that is called Windows OneCare Live. The pricing policy is described
Microsoft® Windows OneCare Live will be available in June from retailers and via the Web for an annual subscription of $49.95 MSRP for up to three personal computers. To thank its valuable beta customers and offer an easy transition to the paid service, Microsoft also announced today a promotional deal offering the first year of Windows OneCare Live service for $19.95 to beta customers who become subscribers between April 1 and April 30, 2006.
Ed Bott has been beta testing OneCare Live and has some favorable comments. But he also asks Is security software a protection racket?. Among his comments
A few things bother me about this announcement, however.
For starters, why isn’t there a free antivirus component? Microsoft lists virus protection as one of the three “security essentials” in the Windows XP Security Center. Everything else in the OneCare Live package has a free equivalent, so why not this piece?
And how am I supposed to make an informed purchase decision based on effectiveness? With OneCare Live, as with virtually all its competitors, the only comparisons are based on features, eye candy, and reputation.
Microsoft has always looked at is software as something that was rented by the user and the company’s new series of “Live” products is taking us down the road to their preferred way of marketing, the yearly subscription model. You can bet that the total cost of using Microsoft programs isn’t going to get cheaper.
What’s also interesting is the reaction of a big participant in the security business, Symantec. Did they lower their prices for anti-virus software in the face of this competition from Microsoft? Hardly. Instead already last fall they had raised the cost of renewing their anti-virus definitions and decided that the subscription model was good for them too. The Desktop Pipeline had an article with the headline “Symantec Ratchets Up Renewal Prices Of Security Products”. It noted
Symantec this week quietly raised the price of annual renewals for its consumer and small business line of security products by as much as 33 percent, saying that it was part of a long-considered move toward a subscription-based business model, and not a reaction to Microsoft’s recent entry into the security space.
Every year hardware components not only improve in performance but also often become cheaper. Contrast that to software.
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