McAfee joins Symantec protesting Vista kernel lockout

Stan Beer
Monday, 02 October 2006 17:22

Business IT - Security

McAfee CEO George Samunek said in the FT ad that Microsoft was being unrealistic if, by locking security companies out of the kernel, it thinks hackers won't crack Vista's kernel.

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The statement by Samunek is an exact echo of similar statements being disseminated around the European marketplace by Symantec

"Microsoft is using its monopoly over its operating system to force customers to use its solutions," said Symantec spokesman, Chris Paden from Europe. "In our case, it is trying to manipulate customers and force them to use only Microsoft solutions."

According to Paden there are a couple major areas where Microsoft is out of order.

"One is with Windows Security Center, which is a dashboard which has gauges that monitor various security elements of your computer. Other competitors have dashboards also. Right now, Windows Security Center is the default dashboard on Vista. Microsoft has refused to allow customers to go and purchase whichever dashboard they want and have that dashboard automatically work on its own.

"As it stands, Microsoft is insisting that the dashboards operate side by side, which is ludicrous. Customers have to manually turn off Windows Security Center which is not an easy problem for an average user.