Microsoft said it will, however, continue to offer Sybari’s antivirus gateways, known as Antigen, for IBM’s Domino, which competes with Microsoft’s own Exchange. As long as it is running on Windows NT, of course.
By maintaining a complete focus on protecting the Microsoft Windows platform and taking the time to truly understand how Windows systems work within corporate environments, we can best protect the essential data and functions that they serve, Microsoft security chief Mike Nash said in a statement.
Tight integration with Exchange is planned, as is integration with SharePoint portal server and Live Communications Server, Microsoft’s other collaboration server products. Sybari’s existing licensing model will be kept, however.
The closure of the acquisition, four months after it was announced, means Microsoft is now has one foot firmly planted in the antivirus market. The company expects to plant the second foot, OneCare, its desktop antivirus software, later this year.
Sybari’s main selling point was that it did not have its own antivirus engine or signatures service. Instead, it allows users to run multiple engines from a selection of eight partners, including Sophos, Computer Associates, Kaspersky Labs, VirusBuster and Norman.
This offered some benefits. Different antivirus companies have different response times to new viruses. Some are better at handling certain types of files, such as those compressed with Zip, a common method of evading some filters.
Microsoft will continue to offer this multiple-engine service. The company has previously told us it will also offer its own engine, based on the technology it acquired when it bought GeCad Software srl two years ago.
For a company with Microsoft’s record, it also could provide a way to neatly sidestep any allegations that its entry into the antivirus market is anticompetitive, since competing vendors can actually license their software via Sybari.
The larger vendors, the ones with the most exposure to Microsoft’s forthcoming entry to the desktop antivirus market, such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, are not believed to be current Sybari partners.
