Microsoft Corp. is still on track to offer an anti-virus product that will compete against similar software offered by Symantec Corp. and Network Associates Inc., the world's largest software maker said late on Monday.
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Mike Nash, chief of Microsoft's security business unit, told reporters that Microsoft is developing software to protect personal computers running Windows against malicious software, the worms and viruses that have plagued users with data loss, shutdowns and disruptions in Web traffic in recent years.
"We're still planning to offer our own AV (anti-virus) product," Nash said.
Asked if that would hurt sales of competing products, such as Network Associates' McAfee and Symantec's Norton family of products, Nash said that Microsoft said that it would sell its anti-virus program as a separate product from Windows, rather than including it in Windows.
Redmond, Washington-based acquired anti-virus technology from GeCAD Software Srl., a Romanian software company, last year to develop its own software.
Microsoft, whose Windows operating system is a favorite target for computer viruses, launched a company-wide "Trustworthy Computing" campaign in early 2002 to boost the security and reliability of its software.
Nash did not give a time frame for the release of Microsoft's anti-virus software.