Microsoft says it is offering free software designed to help protect Windows users from increasingly annoying spyware.
The move prompted several observers to suggest Microsoft eventually will enter the computer security market, the Washington Post said Friday.
Microsoft said the software is still unfinished and would not say when consumers can expect a final product. The announcement also led to falling stock prices for anti-virus companies such as McAfee and Symanec.
Spyware is a general term for programs that surreptitiously transmit information about a computer user by way of the Internet. It can slow a computer's performance so much that it becomes practically unusable.
Like computer viruses, the software generally comes through e-mail or unwitting downloads of software carrying the troublesome programs.
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