You probably know that a program called Microsoft AntiSpyware is
currently being given away by the Redmond company in a public beta program.
What you may not know is that the program started out being co-developed
by another software company — which happens to own the rights to
Microsoft's spyware database for the better part of the next three years.
That's an interesting tale, and the telling of it may
give your company a look into the future of all such software.
Good Fences Make Good Developers
Stu Sjouwerman is the founder and COO of Sunbelt Software, the maker of
IHateSpam, Directory Inspector, and many other programs for PCs. Sunbelt
is also the publisher of CounterSpy, an anti-adware program based on much
of the same code as Microsoft AntiSpyware.