Hotmail ditches McAfee antivirus for Trend Micro

Dec 21, 2004: MSN's Hotmail service, which at the latest count has 187 million users worldwide, has ditched McAfee as its antivirus provider, replacing it with rival Trend Micro.

Trend Micro is to take over the provision of automatic protection anytime customers of Microsoft's web-based email service send and receive email attachments. All such messages will be scrutinised by Trend Micro’s scanning and detection services in real time for viruses, Trojans and worms.

"MSN is focused on providing a safer online experience for consumers, and we continue to make investments in this area. We're pleased to work with Trend Micro, with its deep antivirus expertise, to expand the email protection of our Hotmail customers," said Phil Holden, director of MSN Communication Services at Microsoft. "We see this offering as important in helping protect our Hotmail customers while also guarding members of the overall Hotmail community and the friends and family they email."

“Our relationship with MSN Hotmail gives Trend Micro a tremendous opportunity to help protect millions of users with the same virus protection that we have been providing to our customers around the world for many years,” said Steve Chang, chairman and founder of Trend Micro.

McAfee was unavailable to comment on the developments.

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