Microsoft Warily Eyes Antivirus Market

Ever since Microsoft(MSFT Quote) acquired an antivirus company nearly a year ago, analysts have been casting the software behemoth as a dark cloud threatening to rain on the booming sector's parade.

Microsoft did little to allay worries of a coming storm in the antivirus field at a presentation in Silicon Valley Thursday afternoon. Rich Kaplan, corporate vice president of security business and technology marketing, said Microsoft remains on the fence about its plans for the technology it acquired with the purchase of Bucharest, Romania-based antivirus maker GeCAD Software last June.

"We haven't decided yet how and if we will integrate that technology," Kaplan told a group of roughly 100 people at a presentation on Microsoft's security. In the near term, Microsoft is focused on partnering with other antivirus vendors, including Computer Associates(CA Quote), to improve security in the release of its Windows Service Pack 2 this summer. ...