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Talk of the bay

Clearwater software maker goes toe-to-toe with Microsoft

By LOUIS HAU
Published January 10, 2005

A Tampa Bay area company apparently is proving to be a distraction to Microsoft Corp.'s entry into the growing market for antispyware software.

On Dec. 16, Microsoft said it had acquired New York-based Giant Company Software Inc., a maker of software that blocks spyware, programs that can lodge themselves on computers and plague users with pop-up ads, track their Web surfing habits and perform other nasty tasks. By Thursday, Microsoft had posted a test version of its newly acquired software on its Web site.

But no sooner had Microsoft announced the acquisition when it reportedly received word from Sunbelt Software Inc. of Clearwater that Sunbelt retained ownership of certain elements of Giant's technology.

That prompted Microsoft to issue a statement Dec. 17 stressing that any future products based on Giant technology "will be owned solely by Microsoft, and in no way will be co-owned by any third party." But Microsoft also conceded that a pre-existing agreement between Sunbelt and Giant required Microsoft to provide Sunbelt with updates to Giant's spyware database through July 2007.

Where things stand now is unclear. Microsoft officials wouldn't comment, and neither would Sunbelt president Alex Eckelberry.

On Dec. 17, eWeek.com quoted Eckelberry as saying Microsoft's acquisition of Giant "is fantastic news for us because we co-own the Giant code and all future definition updates. . . . We now get the benefit of the Microsoft research on antispyware to give us, bar-none, the best antispyware signature database on the market."

But three days later, an article posted on the Web site of the monthly magazine Windows IT Pro reported that Sunbelt executives "formally stated" Microsoft's ownership claims to Giant's technologies "are, in fact, correct." The article also said Sunbelt executives "say they've been "impressed' with Microsoft's professionalism in this matter."

[Last modified January 7, 2005, 19:46:04]