Microsoft blocking development of security products compatible with Vista

Symantec, the market leader in antivirus software (the company garnered 53+% of the market in 2005), is bent at Microsoft. Apparently, Microsoft won't provide development kits on its upcoming Vista operating system to security-software vendors. If Microsoft continues not playing with others, users will get the short end of the stick on Vista ship day because the only compatible security software available for those new machines will be Microsoft's own OneCare -- a shortcut for the installation of which will appear on the desktop when the computer boots up. (Microsoft and the EU are still wrangling over Microsoft's attempts to drive competitors from the market with monopolistic practices such as these.) Microsoft has promised that Vista will be the most secure operating system to date, but secure according to whom? If they won't share their info and allow users security options, why should anyone trust this statement? Without companies like Symantec, McAfee and many others competing to provide better products, it's the customers who ultimately lose -- in the short run (who knows what crap will end up on our machines from Microsoft's bedfellows and unforeseen threats alike?) and the long run (if other companies currently working on the security issue are put out of business, who will we turn to when Microsoft decides it doesn't care about what's important to us little guys?).

Symantec's current complaints haven't seen a day in court. Instead the company hopes that the broadcasting of these concerns will move the public to act in their own -- and Symantec's -- best interest to coerce Microsoft into sharing. Email Microsoft and tell them what you think of this kind of corporate misbehavior.