Microsoft, Qwest team on security

Microsoft Corp. said Monday that its Internet security software will be included with Qwest’s high-speed Internet service, marking the first such partnership for the software company’s new online product.

Windows Live OneCare, which aims to protect users from Internet attacks and keep PCs running smoothly, will be offered at no additional cost to Qwest’s broadband subscribers along with Windows Live-branded e-mail and other programs, the companies said. A launch date hasn’t been set.

Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc. already offers its broadband clients a set of features under Microsoft’s MSN online brand. They include e-mail accounts, junk mail filters and Microsoft rival McAfee Inc.’s Internet virus scanning.

Qwest spokeswoman Kate Varden said customers will have the choice of sticking with the MSN and McAfee offering or switching to Windows Live when it launches.

Moscow

Ukraine warned on gas reserves

State-controlled gas monopoly OAO Gazprom raised the threat of a repeat gas crisis with Ukraine, warning Monday that the ex-Soviet nation was building up its winter gas supplies too slowly and possibly endangering smooth deliveries to Europe.

Gazprom said in a statement that a company meeting Monday chaired by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller noted that “gas is being injected at too slow a rate” into underground storage facilities in Ukraine. The company added that it would push Ukraine’s Naftogas company to build up the necessary reserves.

Storage facilities in Ukraine are essential to the smooth supply of natural gas from Russia to Central and Western Europe in the peak demand season in winter.

New York

Greenspan picks memoirs helper

Alan Greenspan has selected a Fortune magazine veteran, Peter Petre, to assist on his memoirs, for which the former Federal Reserve chairman received a reported $8.5 million.

Greenspan’s literary representative, Washington, D.C. attorney Robert Barnett, said Monday that there were three reasons for choosing Petre, a senior editor-at-large at Fortune: His experience working on best sellers, including Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s “It Doesn’t Take a Hero”; his expertise in economic issues; and, says Barnett, “He’s a delightful guy to work with.”

Petre’s selection was reported Monday by the New York Times.

Pittsburgh

Vitamin company sets stock target

The parent company of vitamin retailer General Nutrition Centers Inc. hopes to raise $400 million in an initial public stock offering, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Pittsburgh-based parent company, GNC Corp., has been privately owned by the Apollo Management investment group since 2003.