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On January 15, 2002, Bill Gates sent email to every full-time employee at Microsoft, in which he describes the company’s new strategy emphasizing security in its products. In the email Gates referred to the new philosophy as “Trustworthy Computing” and called it the “highest priority”.

The Computerworld posting Microsoft Can’t Claim Victory in Security Battle picks up the story.

As Gates officially retires from his job at Microsoft, he leaves behind a company that by most accounts is doing better on security. But fully convincing users of that is an elusive goal. And increasing competition from Web 2.0 and software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors is posing new challenges for the security development model implemented after Gates wrote his memo.

There is general agreement that bugs are inevitable and that Microsoft’s massive user base makes it a big target for attackers. But the steady drumbeat of patch releases has tarnished the company’s efforts to improve its security standing, …

The original blog posting “Trustworthy Computing” - Yea, Right, Sure
was posted soon after the “Trustworthy Computing” memo hit the Web. It has been updated since.

Yea, right, sure, Bill. Sending Microsoft coders off to security and reliability coding school is going to make thing all better real soon. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Anyone sent off to training comes back knowing some new buzzwords and maybe even understanding a couple new concepts.

I applaud the effort, but it takes a very long time to break old coding habits and internalize new ones, no matter what the punishments and rewards are. No one comes back cleansed of old habits. I’m reminded of the limerick that you can train a dog but you can’t make it think.

I think the problem facing Microsoft is systemic. In my opinion, poorly designed code and poor coding practices may be at the heart of the Microsoft security and stability epidemic. Detecting and eradicating them may be impossible.

If it could be done, the effort may cost many times that of developing and testing the product line in the first place. Automated tools will help pick off the very low hanging fruit, but won’t get anywhere near the really nasty problems that seem to exist throughout Microsoft’s product line.

Bill Gates seems to have made choices about security and reliability early on. There’s no practical way to rectify them now, except maybe by starting from scratch.

Even starting over with Vista won’t fix the problem. The real culprit may be Microsoft’s corporate culture created by Bill Gates. Getting a culture’s head straight is a very difficult, if not an impossible task.

In my opinion, the fundamental problem facing Microsoft isn’t a technology one but a human one. I don’t think any amount of training or engineering will fix it.

Besides corporate culture, I don’t think starting over is a likely option for Microsoft, as I discussed in the Obese Windows blog posting.

Microsoft security issues are getting better. I don’t foresee them improving to the state of common contemporary operating systems such as Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX, Free BSD, Open BSD, etc…

I also don’t expect seeing the company culture change radically. Bill Gates may have left the building but he is still Chairman of the Board and the company’s largest share holder.

…John

(credit: The New York Times)

Microsoft Windows has put on a lot of weight over the years says The New York Times posting by Randall Stross, Windows Could Use a Rush of Fresh Air.

Beginning as a thin veneer for older software code, it has become an obese monolith built on an ancient frame. Adding features, plugging security holes, fixing bugs, fixing the fixes that never worked properly, all while maintaining compatibility with older software and hardware — is there anything Windows doesn’t try to do?

Painfully visible are the inherent design deficiencies of a foundation that was never intended to support such weight. Windows seems to move an inch for every time that Mac OS X or Linux laps it.

The best solution to the multiple woes of Windows is starting over. Completely. Now.

The posting goes on to say

In some crucial ways, however, Microsoft would enjoy advantages in developing its own “Windows OS X,” as we might call it, that Apple did not: the power of today’s quad-core machines and sophisticated virtualization software would allow older software applications and hardware peripherals to be used indefinitely with little or no performance penalty, making a clean start far easier for customers to accept.

A MONOLITHIC operating system like Windows perpetuates an obsolete design. We don’t need to load up our machines with bloated layers we won’t use.

Thank you Randall Stross for summing up the state of Windows. Unfortunately, as long as cash flow keeps Microsoft in the black, I don’t think Microsoft will deviate from the Windows core.

I don’t think Microsoft has designed an operating system from scratch, except for a research exercises that produced “Singularity.” DOS was purchased from Seattle Computer Company, 16-bit Windows had DOS at the core, and 32-bit Windows NT and its siblings, were derived from the Digital Equipment Corporation VMS and RSX-11 operating systems.

Writing an operating system and surviving in the market place, is an extremely difficult thing to do. Operating system programming is most likely the most difficult kind of programming there is, and it takes years to mature the code. Take Unix for an example.

Unix is approaching 40 years of age. It was designed to be portable, multi-tasking, and multi-user. The surviving siblings demonstrate that the design is still a winner.

Common contemporary operating systems, except Microsoft Windows, are derived from Unix. This includes Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX, Free BSD, Open BSD, etc…

Microsoft looks to be stuck with Windows until they eat crow and buy into the Unix universe. I think they would be committing a slow and painful suicide if they try to go it alone.

…John

(Credit: Business Week)

A number of companies are opting not to embrace Redmond’s latest operating system and, like GM, are waiting for Windows 7 instead, so reports the Business Week posting Closing the Door to Microsoft Vista.

Unfortunately some decision makers are still buying and drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid, and hoping for a better outcome. More of them are joining the chorus saying “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

General Motors (GM) may take a detour around Vista, the latest computer operating system from Microsoft (MSFT). The automaker has encountered so many speed bumps getting Vista to work on its machines that it may just wait for the next version of Windows, due in 2010 or 2011. “We’re considering bypassing Vista and going straight to Windows 7,” says GM’s Chief Systems & Technology Officer Fred Killeen.

Vista taxes all but the most modern PCs with hefty processing and memory requirements. Many of GM’s PCs can’t even run the system. “By the time we’d replace them, Windows 7 might be ready anyway,” Killeen says. Then there are compatibility problems with all the software that needs to run on Windows. GM’s software vendors still haven’t ensured all their programs will run on Vista trouble-free. So the company is sticking with Windows XP for now. Killeen figures GM could install Windows 7 in three or four years.

Many of Killeen’s counterparts across Corporate America are finding themselves similarly vexed by Vista. The resulting delay or rejection of Microsoft’s flagship product is stepping up pressure on the company to expand other areas of its business, including online software. Vista was first released in late 2006, but the dismay with it has come into sharper focus as slower-than-expected uptake affects Microsoft’s bottom line, Google (GOOG) spiffs up its own free versions of competing software, and corporate tech managers move to put more Apple Macs on employee desks.

Microsoft looks to have been masters of selling visions and eye candy to most decision makers for years.

My posting Microsoft Twelve Step Recovery Programs may need a bit of revision.

It seems to me, Microsoft is continuely plastering do-everything and over featured user interfaces on troubled code. It’s like heaping more layers of frosting on a cake that’s molding on the inside. The cake may have marketing flash and sizzle, but customers are getting sick eating it. For what ever reason, they keep coming back and paying, and paying, for more sugar highs from the frosting.

Looks to me like denial and addiction behavior. Maybe Microsoft Twelve Step Recovery programs are the next big thing.

The seemingly rejection of Vista by corporate America may be signaling Microsoft is going south from its zenith.

…John

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and not responded to the market and faces serious competition that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts. Never the less, they are reported to be optimistic about Windows’ revival.

Joe Wilcox isn’t. His Microsoft Watch posting Broken Windows Can’t Be Fixed disagrees with those thinking Windows can be fixed.

It’s the problem of legacy and Microsoft’s ridiculous integration strategy. Windows is a fat client for a thin world. There’s no future place for the desktop client. Computing is shifting from the desktop to the device and server. Windows, particularly Vista, has too much middle-age girth to dance with the lithely crowd.

Operating systems are commodity products, and no wishful thinking by Microsoft will change that. Commodity status is one reason why Microsoft maintains its Windows monopoly. In the 1990s, Microsoft reached monopoly because Windows provided a platform from which so many third parties could make money. The company maintained the monopoly, at least since the turn of the century, because of the operating systems’ declining importance. Windows was a checklist item for consumers or IT organizations, something that came with new PCs.

The supporting ecosystem remains significant, but not the commodity operating system. Most businesses and consumers don’t buy operating systems. OS decisions are predicated by applications or hardware.

Microsoft could have maintained a happy, commodity-driven sales situation, if not for the Web 2.0 platform’s success and Windows Vista’s failure. The Web 2.0 platform and Vista are juxtaposition. Web applications tend to be light and simple, with complexity pulled to the server and new features easily made available; service updates go out to all users instantly. The Web platform can deliver up applications to most any client—anytime and anywhere.

By contrast, Vista dramatically increases operating system complexity and hardware requirements. But, with the increasing business and consumer shift to mobile devices, the market demands less complexity and lower-powered hardware. Microsoft’s inability to offer Windows Vista for low-powered laptops is example of the problem’s size. Vista demands too much. Something else: Deployment complexity plagues Windows and many supporting applications, particularly in the enterprise.

Windows is now in an inevitable state of decline that can only accelerate as people use more powerful, smaller devices. Web 2.0 is ideally suited to lower-powered, highly-functional mini-laptops and smart phones. Vista is not. When I say, “inevitable state of decline,” I don’t mean immediate. Windows will have a place as a commodity operating system for many years yet. But real computing and informational relevance has shifted to the device, server, IP network and anytime, anywhere access on anything.

I agree with Joe. The rest of his posting delivers more details. Give it a read if you’re interested in the ongoing story of Microsoft slipping from its zenith.

…John

The Information Week posting Mac Buyer’s Guide: Which Apple Should You Pick? begins by saying

We’ve tested the Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and the XServe. There’s not a bad Apple among the bunch, and some are truly superb. We’ll help you choose one that’s right for you.

Maybe that most recent e-mail virus was the last straw. Maybe you’ve been longing for a computer that “just works” and that you actually look forward to using. Maybe Microsoft Vista finally just sent you right around the bend. Perhaps it was that “Mac guy” on the commercials. Or maybe you are the “Mac guy.”

My lust list contains a Mac Pro.

(Credit: Apple)

My Mac G4 is serving me well. My PhotonJohn.com high dynamic range imaging (HDRI), super-resolution (SR), and panorama panels, rendering processes are taxing it.

(Credit: Apple)

My lust list also contains a MacBook Pro for the photography studio, so I can control a tethered New and Improved Canon 450D / Rebel XSi camera. Once the camera is positioned for a shot, all fine tuning and firing is done from the MacBook Pro. The image is then downloaded for close inspection and initial rendering.

(Credit: Apple)

I’m a happy Mac camper. When I need to work on a Windows machine, I Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) to a Windows XP workstation.
I’ll be able to run Windows directly on the two Mac computers on my lust list using VMware Fusion.

…John