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Microsoft Launches 'Channel 9' Blog
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported by News.com, Microsoft quietly launched Channel 9, a blog/discussion forum aimed at improving communication with outside developers, on Tuesday. Named for the audio channel that many airlines use to let passengers listen in on crew conversations during flight, Channel 9's creators state the following in a welcoming message: 'Five of us in Redmond are crazy enough to think we just might learn something from getting to know each other...Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane.'"
The sad fact surrounding this post is that MS is not trying to reach folks, it's probably a site devoted to try to pull the linux on desktop people back to windows. See the fancy Wiki? See the link to developers? A clever impersonation of the open development model, when in fact it's the same bottom line.
The funny part about channel9.msdn.com is that it outlines why security will never be M$'s forte. The development cycle (which they partially outline) doesn't give enough freedom for fixing of bugs and complete testing before release, which is why security holes will continue to haunt M$ like a raging case of herpes. No OS is free from security holes, but when live systems are at risk for months with no patches, the opportunity cost of loss becomes a real factor.
Which comes back to the 'technical evangelists.' The site is aimed at providing 'customer satisfaction,' obviously. Their hoping that pissed customers will watch some movies and forget that the latest virus/worm/trojan/malware is crippling their network. So M$ has hired some evangilists to talk people down (after reinstall after reinstall) and convince everyone that M$ has a real commitment to making good software. Ha ha.