While Microsoft's latest deals show it's committed to building its security muscle, some analysts say the company needs to focus on a clearer and more productive strategy. The software maker said it was making security its top priority when it launched its Trustworthy Computing Initiative three years ago. Since then, it has overhauled its in-house development to bolster security and has put its $38 billion war chest to work. It has been buying antivirus and anti-spyware companies and other security assets--acquisitions that have been closely watched. "While there is a great deal of hoopla around the acquisitions, what is more important is to see what they make of them," said Michael Cherry, a lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Wash. "I don't think that the past acquisitions have shown a tremendous payback yet." It's about time that Microsoft turned the technologies it has picked up in its scattershot buys into actual products that customers can use, analysts said. The company announced its takeover of FrontBridge Technologies, a hosted e-mail security provider, on Wednesday, the same day it said it had taken a minority stake in Finjan Software and licensed some of the security appliance maker's patents on behavior-based intrusion detection technologies. These moves follow the acquisitions of Romanian antivirus software developer GeCad Software two years ago, desktop anti-spyware maker Giant Software in late 2004, and corporate security software vendor Sybari earlier this year. Sybari software can use multiple engines to scan e-mail and instant messages for viruses and spam. Read the rest of the article at News.com.
