Microsoft seeks government, private security alliances

Microsoft is in talks with governments and companies in several countries to establish partnerships to help protect computer users against cyber attacks, it said Friday.

One of those countries is Japan. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer will visit that country next week and meet with government officials, Microsoft partners and others, but Microsoft is not ready to announce a security partnership there yet, said Microsoft spokesman Sean Sundwall.

“As we are in many countries, we are certainly engaged in discussions with companies in Japan and certain government sectors with the end goal of protecting customers against the security threats posed by hackers,” Sundwall said. “There is no announcement that Steve (Ballmer) or Microsoft will be making next week on this front.”

Microsoft is looking to involve a broad group of companies in the security alliances it is seeking to build. This includes other software makers as well as hardware and networking equipment companies. “Frankly, any company who has customer interaction that leverages technology or the Internet,” Sundwall said. He declined to specify the countries Microsoft is targeting for the alliances.

The proposed group in Japan would also include Microsoft competitors and would be called the Secure Computing Alliance, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition Friday. The group is to include large Japanese PC makers, Internet service providers, software companies and electronics retailers, the Journal reported, based on sources.

“It is very premature to announce anything at this point in terms of a formal group,” Microsoft’s Sundwall said. He also declined to say when an announcement of a group would come, or even if it will come. “It is premature to even speculate,” he said.

Microsoft’s Japan unit has been very active in helping customers secure their systems. In September, in the wake of a series of virus and worm attacks, the unit gave away CD-ROMs containing a full set of updates for the Windows XP operating system. The CD-ROMs also helped answer a request made by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). In the U.S. and elsewhere, Microsoft launched a “Protect Your PC” public relations initiative, which includes full-page newspaper ads and a Web site to help users secure their systems.