SW: Will Microsoft ever become a serious security provider?

I do not agree with this based on the following.

Economics 101 talks about the perfect economy being one where every person picks the one thing they do best and doing it to the exclusion of all other.

Clearly Microsoft is the best producer of operating systems.

Then there are those companies who have stayed with one product only i.e. an antivirus [AV} program or a firewall or a spyware removal program.

Then there are others who have started with an AV and at some point decided to offer a firewall as well, like Norton / Symantec.

In my opinion the quality of the offer becomes diluted when a reputable AV like Norton / Symantec decides to dabble in firewalls.

Had Norton / Symantec gotten into some sort of partnership with a firewall company and perhaps a spyware removal company and offered a package to the end user, consisting of all three products, things may have been different.

If you read some of the posts in our V&S and you may come to the conclusion that there have been more problems recently, with the AV/ Firewall combination, than 5+ years ago when they offered the e-mail scanner along with AV protection.

So, should MS become a security provider?.

Not in the strict sense of the words, no.

Should they enter into a liason with an AV producer as well as a firewall and spyware eliminating producer?

Yes.

The entire package should form part of the Windows installation disc, so that a novice connecting to the net for the first time will have all 3 protective layers covering the installation.

If MS wants to charge a few $$ more that is acceptable.

said NO just on the basis that in choice between Convenience & Security (basically incompatible), marketing clearly showed that Convenience is King when it comes to sales!!
More recently, it appears to me that Poor Billy has met his match and been trashed by the US Governments' extortion and threats to bankrupt him and destroy his company as they felt he, like Howard Hughes had become to rich & powerful for their comfort. In Howards' case it was domination in aircraft tech (especially military)(why do you think there are no Avro Arrows existent?) and in Bills it's in computers (particularly military) but domination in OS period. He could have left himself a back door allowing him to threaten to shut down Government functions with the wisp of a net-bios sent switch off command( not that he would?) I suspect(no believe!) that the price of his being allowed to continue on was to build in a back door to allow government to access & log actions on ANY new Win OS (not to mention same paths ability to install any file(evedentiary or other)Government wanted into such targeted system) effectively putting everyone (or 90%+)on an instant choke leash. To add insult to injury, they probably demanded he do the same with his existing op.systems but this was very hard to do (especially on old pre XP versions which were becoming obsolete) so he/they had to settle for some such buried in the Free "nearly a new OS" SP2. Surprised the new one was named "Longhorn(the Texan)" and now as "Vista(the view")?
We've already seen the same mindset when it was recently proved that (some?) Depts of the US Gov. were stealth installing spyware in systems of the general public when they visited various Gov.web sites online for the most mundane of reasons and to the most innocuous of departments (we're not talking visiting Military R&D sites here!).
I guess it all depends on what you call security and whose.( SSSssssh: it a secret!).