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CNET has an anonymous source telling them that Microsoft will announce this week that it plans to ship the release version of Windows OneCare Live before the summer.

OneCare will be a subscription service and cost $50 a year for antivirus, firewall and tune-up/backup tools.

While Microsoft's product is not as feature complete as competing products from Norton and McAfee, it also doesn't bloat and slow down systems, and costs a lot less for the whole package. For an obvious reason, Microsoft is the only company that considers it paramount that its products do not unnecessarily ruin Windows performance, something Norton should try.

Maybe OneCare will never win on features, but as long as it protects users from malicious software and people, and keeps PCs running faster than they would under others, it will very quickly capture the home security market away from the longtime leaders. They didn't make it a priority to protect home computers, they made it a priority to sell software and target businesses, and now Microsoft is going to school them on how being responsible can be very profitable.

(via Todd Bishop)

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

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