Do users trust Microsoft enough to allow the Redmond vendor to secure their systems?

Microsoft has been testing out, for at least two years, the concept of offering consumers security and management services on a hosted basis. (It did so via a prototype known as the PC Satisfaction Trial.) Earlier this month, the Redmond software vendor went public with its plans to launch the resulting MSN-branded subscription service, code-named "A1" — and officially christened "Windows OneCare."

We still don't know a whole heck of a lot about OneCare. We don't know how much it will cost, who will sell it and whether or not customers will be interested in buying such a service from Microsoft.

We also don't know whether Microsoft will field a version of OneCare for enterprises. Given that enterprises have entire departments dedicated to securing and managing their systems, it doesn't seem as if such a product would be of much interest.

Mike Nash, head of the company's security technology and business unit, said during a Webcast this week that Microsoft was planning an enterprise version of OneCare. Now company officials are saying that "there are no current plans" for such a product. But Gartner Group and other pundits are predicting Microsoft will, indeed, field something like OneCare for corporate users.

Here's what we do know. Microsoft is the newcomer to this subscription-security-service space, trailing Symantec and McAfee. While Microsoft might undercut its competitors in price, it's unlikely to go too far (by bundling too much for free) so as not to rile antitrust watchers.

We also know that Microsoft is not perceived by some users, even staunch Windows ones, as trustworthy. Remember: Corporate customers were none too keen to entrust their personal data to a Microsoft-housed repository when Microsoft fielded its .Net My Services (a k a "Hailstorm") strategy a few years back. It's unclear the extent to which consumers and small/mid-size business users share similar sentiments.

Microsoft has a fine line to walk with OneCare. The company is looking to charge users for fixing problems that are seen by many as ones that Microsoft itself created with the choices it made in developing Windows, Internet Explorer and other Microsoft products. It needs to seem trustworthy, despite the fact that its products are in dire need of a Trustworthy Computing overhaul.

What do you think? Will Windows users — consumer and/or corporate — flock to Windows OneCare? Or will Microsoft have to go back to the drawing board, as it did with Hailstorm, to find a more palatable way to sell subscription services to its users?

Talk back below or write me at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and
let me know what you think.