After two years during which the entire IT industry had wondered what Microsoft was going to do with the technology bought from the GECAD Group from Bucharest, the answer finally came at the end of last week.
Microsoft on Friday announced it had finalised the first version of a complete security application, Windows OneCare, whose development involved Romanian specialists, as well. This is a major step for the American giant, which had not made that much of a dent in the IT security industry, which is extremely important given that more and more voices are saying the next large-scale terror attack could (also) happen on the Internet.
This is the first solution developed by Microsoft that targets protecting computers against threats from viruses to attacks over the Internet. Following the transaction with GECAD in June 2003, estimated at 10 to 20 million dollars by some analysts at the time, Microsoft got both the antivirus technology developed by the company and a team of Romanian experts that went to Redmond, the headquarters of Bill Gates'' company, along with their families.
The official figures remained confidential, as did the number of Romanian specialists that went to Redmond. One thing is sure, though, and that is Microsoft even made an offer to Radu Georgescu, the founder and shareholder of GECAD, who preferred to stay in Romania and continue his software business, though giving up, by contract, the possibility of ever developing an antivirus application.
The GECAD team that left for Microsoft at that time in order to work on the antivirus technology formed the first division of the US corporation that specialises in antivirus applications. There are well over 300 Romanian specialists working at Microsoft''s Redmond''s labs in various fields at the moment. Although the announcement made by Microsoft about the launch of Windows OneCare on Friday afternoon makes no reference to the deal with GECAD, the use of the Romanian technology was confirmed by a Microsoft spokesman, quoted by the US press. The head of the security division of the US corporation, Mike Nash had previously confirmed that the antivirus product would be based on the GECAD technology and would be built with help from the specialists brought in from Romania.
Windows OneCare technology will include antivirus protection, and protection against other threats (it will include anti-spyware and firewall), will have data backup and restore capabilities, and will also allow periodic checkups of the integrity of the systems of those using Windows, an operating system which is now running on well over 95% of the PCs in this world. The application will be tested by Microsoft''s employees and then become available for public beta later this year.
"We''re designing the service so it will continually update and evolve over time helping to ensure (...) the most complete and effective protection (...)" possible, said Ryan Hamlin, general manager of the Technology Care and Safety Group at Microsoft.
Microsoft Romania officials and businessman Radu Georgescu had not provided any comment on Microsoft''s recent announcement. Due to different time tables the US Microsoft officials did not answer Ziarul Financiar''s inquiries yesterday.
OneCare will be sold separately from the operating system, thus avoiding possible complications from the market regulatory authorities.
dan.dragomir@zf.ro
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