Microsoft's free anti-virus software, called Morro, is at an advanced stage of testing and will arrive 'soon' to the market.
The software giant announced that it would release the free Morro suite back in November 2008, indicating that the antivirus program would arrive in the second half of 2009.
According to Reuters, a Microsoft spokesman told the news agency that internal testing of Morro was underway and that a beta version would be made available to the public 'soon'.
Microsoft's last foray in the anti-malware market was the OneCare service, which was not a commercial success, but the company decided to produce a free version.
Growing markets
The reasoning behind this was sound, with Senior Director Amy Barzdukas saying at the time: "This new, no-cost offering will give us the ability to protect an even greater number of consumers, especially in markets where the growth of new PC purchases is outpaced only by the growth of malware."
Morro – named after a Brazilian beach – will therefore offer a massive slice of competition to paid-for anti virus software producers such as McAfee and Symantec.
Indeed, Microsoft's latest statement pushed shares of Symantex down by 0.5 per cent and McAfees' 1.3 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange.
Despite this, anti-virus software companies remain bullish about the service, insisting that their own software is superior and that there are already free AV programs on the market – like AVG Free.
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inxs1111
June 12th
2. people are only moaning about morro because microsoft are making it,some people i know have not even got anti virus on there pc,because there are so many out there they dont no which one to put on,but they have windows firewall on and defender because it shipped with vista so why not ship with morro,at least there protected out of the box.and for those who dont want it,uninstall it or disable it,just like all the other 30 day trial security software that come with new computers.moan about microsoft try another os like linux-you will soon go back to ms
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ayros
June 11th
1. I'm not the biggest microsoft fun (but I use it anyway) and I must say this is the smartest business move I've seen them make. Their OS has been also been known as the world's most successful viral playground (virtual disney) and has been their constant Achille's heel. A free AV from them if done properly (something the sofware giant has never learnt) would give them the biggest seen boost to their market. I hope i'm not asking too much for them to make it an optional (I emphasize on the optional) installation to the windows OS packages.
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