14 DAY TRIAL // In the wake of the launch of Windows Live OneCare 2.0 Beta 1, Microsoft's Gina Narkunas, lead product manager for Windows Live OneCare, revealed the top three reasons designed to convince users to adopt the company's anti-virus. OneCare complements Forefront, Microsoft's security solution addressed at the business market, by focusing on end users and small businesses. The first aspect that recommends OneCare 2.0 is the fact that it offers complex all-in-one PC care. Of course that Microsoft, as a newcomer to the security industry is in the shadow of companies such as McAfee, Symantec, Sophos and Kaspersky. And the company also has to convince users that the past history with the poor security associated with its products will not transition to OneCare.
"Windows Live OneCare 2.0 will include features that are designed to simplify the management and use of multi-PC environments. For example, the new multi-PC and home network management feature will help ease the management of multiple-PC environments by providing a single navigation bar for monitoring the security and maintenance of networked computers. It will also enable one-click actions to resolve issues among computers within a home PC network. And Windows Live OneCare will support printer-sharing, so it's easier to connect printers to local networks and allow all users in the vicinity to use the same printer," Narkunas stated.
In addition to offering protection for multi-PC environments, OneCare 2.0 was also applauded for its backup features. One interesting detail in this context is the fact that Windows Live OneCare has been integrated with Windows Live Folders, offering customers the opportunity to store digital photographs online, as an illustration of Microsoft's Software plus services business strategy.
Moreover "Windows Live OneCare 2.0 will include several new features that deliver PC tune-ups to help maintain computer performance and reliability, and that ease management in a multiple-PC environment. Windows Live OneCare 2.0 will also include a new start-time optimizer, which removes rarely used applications from the start-up menu to speed up a computer's boot time. As with Windows Live OneCare 1.0, v. 2.0 will automate tedious but important janitorial tasks such as disk cleanup and disk defragmentation to help keep PCs running at peak performance," Narkunas added.