In January, 2002, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates declared security to be the new top priority at the world's biggest software maker. In a speech to employees and in a public statement, he declared war on bugs and vowed to shore up product security. Of course, the bugs keep popping up, and serious security vulnerabilities continue to be exploited in Microsoft's ubiquitous operating system and applications. Witness the horrific MSBlaster worm that crashed untold thousands of Windows 2000 and XP machines worldwide during the week of Aug. 11.

So how's this for a delicious irony: Microsoft (MSFT ) now appears to be targeting security software products as a new growth opportunity. That's an area where the Colossus of Redmond has previously shown only faint interest, but now savvy observers say the giant is locking in on it.

Microsoft won't break out exact figures, however, most estimates say it will derive less than 1% of its estimated 2003 total revenues of $32 billion from security software and related services. This is in a global information-technology security market for hardware, software, and services that's now worth $17 billion and is set to grow at a 15% clip for the foreseeable future, according to John Pescatore, research director at tech consultancy Gartner. And that would seem to be an alluring opportunity for a company so dependent on the slow-growth Windows operating system and Office software suite. Not to mention so unable to build bug-free, unassaultably secure software itself.