Sunbelt CounterSpy?

[tdinc]

I just ran across this Anti-spyware app' that looks like Giant's (Microsoft Anti-spyware) THe Company is named Sunbelt and the prog is "CounterSpy".

whats the deal here? it looks like a clone.
I did a little investigation on this and from what I have found,

Sunbelt co-authored their anti-spyware engine with Giant, and so the Microsoft AntiSpyware engine is broadly the same engine inside CounterSpy. The Giant engine has enjoyed a consistently strong reputation for accuracy and completeness, which bodes well for Sunbelt. Sunbelt claims that it tunes the ruleset for its version of the engine to be slightly more aggressive than Microsoft’s.

Sunbelt is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner and the two companies have had a strong and friendly partnership for a number of years. The current relationship includes the shared ownership of spyware definition files until July of 2007.

So what does this all mean? A bit confusing, if Microsoft's version is going to be free, why would anyone buy this?

Sunbelt Company profile LINK

Sunbelt Homepage

 

[Perris Calderon]

what would be the purpose of a clone to a free product?

 

[Xie]

A bit confusing, if Microsoft's version is going to be free, why would anyone buy this?

Because they are going to put it in a nice box? It's the same question, "why do people buy Norton [or any AV] when they can get something like AVG for free?".

 

[jpom]

The idea is that, from what I understand, they DO NOT use the same definition files. Sunbelt receives definitions from microsoft and adds them to their own. Sunbelts catch phrase against MS is that they have their own 24/7 team working on their definition files plus they receive everything that microsoft has -- until the contract Sunbelt made with Giant runs out. Also from what I've heard, MS ant-spy has actually dropped the ball compared to Giant and Counterspy picks up the slack + more. I don't have any numbers but this is what various reviews and newsletters that I have read have stated.

James