Microsoft Spyware Deal Brings Christmas Present For One Company

When Sunbelt made a deal with Giant Company Software to share their spyware definition files, it had no idea that the deal would soon bring them millions of dollars and large amounts of manpower in the form of Microsoft R&D, all for free. Apparently Sunbelt had a prior deal with Giant, and after some legal wrangling, Microsoft has released a statement that it will provide Sunbelt with spyware definitions through July 2007. From eWeek:

"This is fantastic news for us because we co-own the Giant code and all future definition updates," Sunbelt president Alex Eckelberry said in an interview with eWEEK.com. "We now get the benefit of the Microsoft research on anti-spyware to give us, bar-none, the best anti-spyware signature database on the market."

Sunbelt's president has already explained that he intends to use the definition files to go head-to-head with the Redmond giant. Great luck for them, but I hope they have some sort of plan for dealing with 7/07, when they have to do the work on their own. My advice? Get bought, probably by McAfee or Symantec, who would love to get their hands on MS's spyware solution.
(via Microsoft Watch)