Microsoft To Ship Antigen Antivirus Line July 1

Microsoft said Tuesday it plans to ship on July 1 six new products based on the Sybari Software enterprise antivirus and antispam product line it acquired in 2005. The first Microsoft-branded beta was made available in February.

The products include Antigen for Exchange, Antigen for SMTP Gateways, Antigen Messaging Security Suite, Antigen Spam Manager, Antigen Enterprise Manager and Antigen Management Pack For Microsoft Operations Manager 2005. Designed for on-premise use, the products will be available through the channel and volume licensing, as well as via Microsoft's Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) for partners that host Antigen products.

Antigen for Exchange and Antigen for SMTP Gateways use five antivirus engines, including Microsoft's long-awaited antivirus engine, which has been under development for several years and is based on assets Microsoft acquired from Romanian antivirus company GeCAD in 2003.

Those Antigen products--which also use two antivirus engines from Computer Associates, one from Sophos and another from Norman Data Defense Systems--are priced at $10.50 per user per year. The Antigen Messaging Security Suite, which includes Antigen for Exchange, SMTP and Spam Manager plus nine antivirus engines, including the Microsoft antivirus engine, are priced at $14.50 per user per year, Microsoft said.

The inclusion of Microsoft's antivirus engine is the key new feature of the Antigen upgrade, but it also includes enhanced cluster support, secure signatures and new centralized management, Microsoft said.

Microsoft's antivirus engine is also available as part of Microsoft's OneCare consumer security service, but Antigen is aimed at businesses, said Steve Brown, director of product management for Microsoft's Security Access and Solutions Division.

"This is the first offering for businesses, an enterprise-class product and enterprise antivirus from Microsoft for the first time," Brown said, noting that customers can access Microsoft's Frontbridge services for scanning e-mail for viruses and spam or use Antigen on-premise products.

"We are working with the channel under our secure messaging campaign," Brown added. "Customers have a choice of hosted and on-premise offerings. With Microsoft, they can get a comprehensive set of solutions that are easy to manage."

In the first half of 2007, Microsoft also plans to roll out Antigen For SharePoint and Antigen For Instant Messaging.

Microsoft will offer free, three-month trial licenses for Antigen products online at https://www.microsoft.com/antigen/downloads/trial-software.mspx.

In addition, Microsoft's Security Access and Solutions Division is preparing to release Microsoft Client Protection into broad beta testing during the second half of this year. That division, formed to acquire and design security products for the Windows environment, acquired DynaComm's i:filter for Web filtering and Whale Communications' SSL VPN and secure access products last month.