Microsoft Security Essentials free anti-malware coming to small businesses, too

Microsoft on Wednesday announced it will be making its free Security Essentials product available to small business in a 10-pack of licenses in October. The anti-malware product has thus far been aimed at the consumer market, and has garnered quite a bit of recognition as a high quality free software antivirus.

This new availability is thanks to a change in the software's end user licensing agreement (EULA), which now lets business customers put Security Essentials on individually managed PCs.

"When we launched Microsoft Security Essentials last year, small businesses kept telling us that it was exactly the type of thing they need at work too," Jeff Smith, director of Marketing for Microsoft Security Essentials said today."What they really wanted from their antivirus software --inexpensive, quiet protection from a provider they can trust-- were all things Microsoft Security Essentials could clearly deliver."

Microsoft Security Essentials is available in 74 markets worldwide in 25 languages, and small businesses with 10 PCs or less will be able to download it next month on http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials.