Symantec Accuses Microsoft of “Conflict of Interest”

Symantec’s CEO John Thompson is bravely captaining his company through a maelstrom of troubles.  Faced with tough competition from McAfee and now a tough-as-nails Operating System from Microsoft in Vista, Thompson still puts on a smile and tries to reassure us that they will be okay.

But if he thinks that the public will buy into his foolish statements that Microsoft is engaging is some kind of “conflict of interest” because they have chosen to secure its operating system against hackers and viruses, then he’s crazy.

In a recent interview with IDG News Service, he tries to push that idea and also admits that the goat-screw of trying to integrate Veritas into Symantec has been the toughest challenge of his career.

From IDG here:

It’s a “huge conflict of interest” for one company to provide both an operating platform and a security platform, Symantec Corp. CEO John Thompson said during a keynote speech at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany.
 
IDGNS: Can you give us an update on how the integration of Veritas Software, which Symantec bought for $13.5 billion in 2005, is going? Some analysts have written that the transition has been rough.

Thompson:It has been the most challenging thing I’ve done in the 37 years I’ve been in this industry. But I’m convinced that strategically we are on the right path. There’s more to do to prove that to people, and operationally the heavy, heavy lifting items associated with the integration are behind us. So now it’s about execution. It’s about our team around the world demonstrating that we can deliver more capability to customers than we ever could before. It’s reflected in what customers want to spend with us, and that’s reflected in our bottom line.

I run Vista at home, commando, with no AV software.  And Vista is excellent at protecting my system from intrusions and malware.  That’s what I like about Vista.  So it is certainly NOT a conflict of interest for Microsoft to also run a security shop to keep their OS secure.  In fact, the security industry for years has been pestering Microsoft to do just that.  It is incumbent upon them to provide the most secure product possible.