Microsoft Security Essentials Celebrates First Birthday with 30 Million Customers!

It has been one year since Microsoft Security Essentials was made generally available to the public and to celebrate, we are pleased to share that there are now over 30 million customers in 74 different countries around the world enjoying the trusted security and quiet protection that Microsoft Security Essentials provides.

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In addition, we are also pleased to share that Microsoft Security Essentials will now come pre-installed on the HP ENVY 14 series and HP ENVY 14 Beats™ edition series PCs starting today. But we’ll talk more about that in a minute.

First, let’s talk about the impact Microsoft Security Essentials is having on the Windows ecosystem.

Making an Impact with Microsoft Security Essentials

When we announced Microsoft Security Essentials last year, we said, “Making Microsoft Security Essentials broadly available as a free consumer download for genuine Windows-based PCs is part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to provide a more trustworthy computing experience for all customers. By making Microsoft Security Essentials easy to get and easy to use, Microsoft hopes to encourage broader adoption of antivirus protection across the consumer audience, which in turn will help increase security across the entire Windows ecosystem.”

And today, helping increase security across the Windows ecosystem is exactly what we are doing.

According to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC), in addition to providing a no-cost security solution to tens of millions of customers that may not have been actively protected before, Microsoft Security Essentials detected nearly 400 million threats over the past year, with customers choosing to remove more than 366 million of those threats. For more information about the specific threat breakdown, please visit the MMPC Blog.

Other highlights from this past year include:

· Originally introduced in 8 languages and 19 countries around the world, Microsoft Security Essentials is currently available and supported in 25 languages and 74 countries globally.

· Microsoft Security Essentials is certified by two of the industry’s leading independent certification authorities: International Computer Security Association Labs (ICSA) and West Coast Labs. It also received the most recent VB100 Award and as well as certification from AV-Test.

· Beginning in October Microsoft Security Essentials will be made available to small businesses on up to 10 PCs for free.

· Microsoft Security Essentials was made available for online partner distribution, as a pre-install on OEM PCs and for distribution by publications as covermount software.

· Microsoft Security Essentials received the PC Advisor Awards 2010 - Best Free Software award and is rated by Consumer Reports as a “Best Buy”.

As you can see, it’s been a pretty exciting year for Microsoft Security Essentials! And the fun doesn’t stop here…

Microsoft Security Essentials Coming Pre-installed on HP Envy Notebooks

Microsoft Security Essentials is currently available to consumers, and soon to small businesses on up to 10 PCs, as a download directly from Microsoft. But today we are thrilled to let you know that HP will be pre-installing Microsoft Security Essentials on the HP ENVY 14 series and the HP ENVY 14 Beats™ edition series PCs beginning today, so be sure to go check these out.

These PCs are stylish and feature powerful Intel® Core™ processors designed to fit the needs of a variety of consumers. In fact, Ben Rudolph (aka “Ben the PC Guy”) has taken the HP ENVY 14 Beats™ edition series for a test drive. For more details on that please visit the Windows Experience Blog.

To learn more about Microsoft Security Essentials, please visit the Microsoft Security Essentials Web site.

So, Happy Birthday Microsoft Security Essentials! And thank you to our valued customers and partners for a very exciting year.

Cheers!

Eric and the entire Microsoft Security Essentials product team

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