The Iron Yuppie

Gartner takes Microsoft to task | CNET News.com

I always wondered what it would be like being in the public eye and having your every move scrutinized. Politicians must chomp at the bit about stuff like this... or would if they weren't on the talking head networks 24/7 attempting to explain their position but ultimately offering up something so vanilla that no one knows where they stand. Back to the point, Gartner wrote some pointed comments about what MS should be doing and not doing... for example:

[...] Microsoft has missed an opportunity to make it clear what role it wants to play in the security market, by not stating its intentions, Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald said in an advisory published Friday. The company needs to "articulate whether it plans to be a leader in consumer and enterprise security solutions across desktop, server and server gateway," he said.

"Microsoft's overriding goal should be to eliminate the need for (antivirus) and (anti-spyware) products, not simply to enter the market with look-alike products at lower prices," MacDonald added.

While I am sure that Mr. MacDonald's views are appreciated, I am also sure that those in Redmond probably have already evaluated those points of view. What is the purpose of an article like this? Is it to encourage (however subtly) MS to change their strategy? With 50,000 people working there, you can pretty much be assured that someone has thought of that strategy, and are likely already pursuing it. The problem with such opinionated statements is that MS is not in a binary situation; they can actually release a low-cost solution in the marketplace as well as developing the means to solve the root causes. As to why they are not talking about this, one can argue that with all the noise they have been making about Trustworthy Computing, they have been talking about it. But let's go back to the article:

James Turner, security analyst at Frost & Sullivan, told ZDNet Australia that Microsoft's security strategy is a "commercially sensitive" area and that the company is not obliged to reveal its strategy.

I wish there was a tag in HTML that was "blatantly obvious but thanks for stating it anyway because it appears that not everyone is getting it". Suffice it to say that tag would appear here.

One more thing about the article though:

"The decision to restrict IE 7.0 to the XP platform also suggests that Microsoft wants to force users of older platforms to upgrade, if they want improved security," he wrote. "If Microsoft wishes to be seen as a responsible industry leader in maintaining security for its products and its customers, it should provide IE 7.0 for Windows 2000 users."

MacDonald said that Microsoft should rebuild IE with security in mind from the bottom up, rather than make "evolutionary" security improvements to the browser software.

Ok, the WORST thing in the world that MS could do would be to rewrite a product with SEVEN versions from the ground up. Because that paid off so well for Netscape. As to whether or not the product will appear as part of Windows 2000, that is an interesting question. I do not think that a lack of an IE upgrade would strongly encourage people to upgrade their OS, but it may cause them to switch to Firefox (unlikely) or mega lock down their Windows 2000 desktops (very likely).