It never ceases to amaze me when I hear someone say something like “I have a hard time selling Microsoft as a security company”. Why? Because if you think about the breadth and depth of the Microsoft security products and technology portfolio, you’d quickly realize that Microsoft would be one of the biggest security companies in the world, just based on their current security related products and technologies.
One thing is for sure — Microsoft is not just sitting on its laurels when it comes to computer security. While Vista and Windows Server 2003 are showing themselves of be almost orders of magnitude more secure than Apple and open source operating systems, Microsoft isn’t happy with just that. You can expect to see a increase in investment in both security products and technologies.
One area you’ll hear a lot about is the Forefront brand of Microsoft security products. Forefront is, and will continue to be ever more in the future, the brand name attached to all Microsoft security product. In fact, the ISA Firewall is official a Forefront product. Forefront is the future of Microsoft security.
Right now Microsoft has a small stable of Forefront products, these include:
- Forefront Security for SharePoint
- Forefront Security for Exchange
- Forefront Security for Office Communication Server
- Forefront Client Security
- Forefront ISA Server 2006
- Forefront IAG 2007
You can expect this list to grow over the next few years. Microsoft has just begun its work at becoming the security company of choice. This is a good thing, as many of the security companies we’ve worked with over the last few years have basically become fat and lazy, and their products aren’t meeting our demands. Having Microsoft throw its very large hat in the ring can only help us all.
HTH,
Tom