WebProNews

Taking a stab at the security world and, further, a punch at anti-virus giants Symantec and McAfee, Microsoft said it will release Windows OneCare, a subscription PC tuneup and firewall service to ride along with virus and spyware protection.

The product will be tested first internally among Microsoft employees and released as a beta version for the public at the end of the year.

At a projected fee of $80 per year, Windows OneCare service will include virus and spyware filtering tools, (eventually) backup and storage on Microsoft servers, and automatic routinized tuneups.

Targeted at non-business consumers, OneCare is designed to be a user friendly application that allows for advanced protection for non-technophiles.

It will include a PC "health meter" akin to the Windows Security Center in Windows XP Service Pack 2, which resembles a traffic light, employing red, yellow and green colors.

In an effort to remedy the complexities of security products for the average user of the OS that is on 90% of computers, OneCare's simplicity is the key selling point.

"That kind of drop-dead simple is what consumers need. They need to know that their PC is good to go," Van Baker, a Gartner analyst in San Jose, California, said.

It is hoped that consumers will be of the mindset that the company that produced the OS is the best to know how to protect it.

Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.