Microsoft Counts on Partners' Vista Apps

Microsoft has taken pains to demonstrate that Windows Vista will have ample application support, particularly in the fields of anti-virus and security, so as to give businesses more incentive to upgrade to the latest version of Windows.

The Vista development team made a special effort to get the anti-virus vendors involved early in the design program, Dave Wascha, director of Microsoft's Vista partner program, said in an interview Nov. 29.

"We spent a significant amount of time with those partners making sure that their products are ready to go," Wascha said. "We know [security] is one of the key mission-critical applications without which enterprises won't move forward with [Vista] deployments," he said.

Microsoft made sure that Vista developers and designers met with ISVs of every application type early and often to answer their questions and to hear the ISVs' views on what should be high-priority goals for Vista features and performance, Wascha said.

The effort apparently worked, because most of the major security software vendors, including Symantec, CA, Trend Micro and Sophos all greeted the Nov. 30 Vista launch with announcements that they were either getting ready to ship Vista versions of their products or developing and testing these products.

Click here to read about why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says Vista will launch a new "wave of innovation."

Symantec, of Cupertino, Calif., announced that it would release in December its Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10.2 for Vista and that its AntiVirus Enterprise Edition 10.2 now includes Symantec Client Security 3.1, to provide anti-virus and anti-spyware protection for Vista clients.

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