Yesterday we announced the release to Beat of the SBS7 product and today we announce some great cost cautious news for the SMB customer with 10 seat or less. Microsoft Security Essentials will be available to these customers for free starting in October.

Microsoft Security Essentials is an excellent solution for your small business. It is very easy to get and very simple to use. The software requires no registration, trials or renewals and is available for download directly from Microsoft. There is also no need to have other cumbersome security programs installed on your PCs since Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection to address the on-going security needs of a genuine Windows PC, helping to protect it from viruses, spyware and other malicious threats. Perhaps best of all; however, is that Microsoft Security Essentials is designed to run quietly in the background, enabling you to continue using your PC – and running your small business – without constant interruptions.

• Microsoft Security Essentials is powered by the same core malware protection engine that drives Microsoft’s enterprise solutions.
• The antimalware engine used in Microsoft Security Essentials – and in all of Microsoft’s security products – is regularly tested by numerous organizations around the world and has consistently been certified by the industry’s leading independent certification authorities: International Computer Security Association Labs (ICSA) and West Coast Labs, VB100, and AV-Test.
• Microsoft Security Essentials uses advanced system scanning and removal technologies that employ a definitions database that details the characteristics and behaviours of known malware. Threats are collected every month from more than 600 million PCs around the world and are assessed by the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, and new signatures are written and deployed daily.

Full product Blog post here