Deja Vu

A long, long time ago...I can still rememberHow that browser used to make me smile.And I knew if it had a chanceThat it could make a website danceAnd users would be happy for a while. (Many apologies to Don McLean)

Before the Web exploded, there was Netscape. And it was good. Netscape made some money using a business model that is very similar to those used by many open-source software based business models. Give away a free "lite" version of its software to propagate usage and sell a professional version with a few more features.

And then Microsoft smelled the trail of gold leading to Netscape's door. Enter Internet Explorer. Free. Bundled (eventually tightly integrated) into the operating system forced upon purchasers of new PCs.

I can???t remember if I criedWhen I saw IE and Netscape collide,But something touched me deep insideThe day that Netscape died.

Deja Vu. This time it's not a browser, but anti-spyware. The worldwide market for anti-spyware software reached $97 million in revenue in 2004, up 240.4 percent from a year earlier, according to IDC analysts. And Microsoft smelled the opportunity to subsume yet another market. It acquired GIANT Company Software, Inc. in December 2004 and its technology is what is now known as Windows Defender, a component of Windows Vista, which is due out this year.Analysts are already foretelling gloom and doom for the anti-spyware industry. Gartner analyst John Pestacore says there will be a two-to-three year window before Vista has a major impact on the anti-spyware market, but agrees that "Integrating Windows Defender into Windows Vista is sort of the last nail into the standalone anti-spyware coffin."

The good news is that companies whose primary business is anti-spyware have some warning. They can certainly see the writing on the wall as well as anyone else. Hopefully, they'll do better than Netscape did and find a new market to mine.

Maybe this time they'll find one that Microsoft won't undercut and steal away with the next release of its operating system.