Microsoft Admits to Serious Problems with OneCare

ZDOne writes "A ZDNet reporter has gotten some truly amazing quotes out of a Microsoft product manager about the troubled OneCare product. Arno Edelmann, Microsoft's European business security product manager, was flagged down at this week's CeBit event, and had this to say about the service: 'Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products. It's not a bad product, but bits and pieces are missing ... OneCare is a new product — they shouldn't have rolled it out when they did, but they're fixing the problems now.' The problem is apparently with the the GeCAD antivirus code, which has had problems harmonizing with the company's Exchange updates. While Exchange 2007 doesn't cause issues, users with older versions may see their email quarantined as a matter of course."

Comments

So...basically they rushed it?

[mikecardii]

This seems to be a typical problem with a lot of technology: Companies roll it out before it's finished, or tested completely.

Re:So...basically they rushed it?

[The Clockwork Troll]

Companies roll it out before it's finished, or tested completely.

Can you give a real-life example of any non-trivial piece of software that is "finished" in the sense of being unimprovable (let alone bug-free)?

One of the few bits of wisdom I can share is the realization that software is never really "done", and the longer you toil in hopes of getting it "complete", the more likely you are to veer from what your customers actually want.

At best, software requirements accurately represent what customers think they want, and that's only at one point in time.

Those wants and needs are going to change, and more importantly, the real needs only become apparent after giving somebody what they "want", their tasting it, and saying, "actually, it would be better if ...".

This is not an excuse for poor testing but it is a defense for early release and frequent iteration.

Re:So...basically they rushed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you give a real-life example of any non-trivial piece of software that is "finished"

TeX

Re:So...basically they rushed it?

[The Clockwork Troll]

Touché, but if it takes a Knuth to finish software, I think the rest of us might want to consider sticking with more iterative approaches.

Far more interesting admission

[AKAImBatman]

Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products.

I can't believe the guy just admitted that. To a major publication like ZDNet, no less. After all the trouble that Microsoft has gone through to convince the US Feds and EU committees that they "innovate", I can't help but wonder if a flying chair isn't in this guy's future.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Seumas]

I still have no idea what OneCare is and I'm not going to bother finding out, but it sure sounds like some sort of outsourcing telephone support contractor company rather than an application or whatever.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[JPyObjC Dude]

Actually this does show some maturity from M$ if this is a "approved" statement.

Scary thing is that only a year ago, it almost looked like M$ would not allow other security vendors to release virus software for Vista and OneCare was going to be the only option. ... Now that was completely ignorant and short sighted.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[iabervon]

It's clearly their more business-friendly name for ADamn, which the EU has been trying, unsuccessfully, to make them give.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[jimstapleton]

buying does not indicate a lack of innovation.

You can buy a product, and add new things to it to make it better than it was before, that is still innovated.

Look at word is now from where it started, or Windows for that matter.

MS /Bought/ DOS, and they innovated (or in some cases as another slasdotter mentioned, pilfered) quite a bit onto it to get another OS - the 9x branch of Windows.

Structure and design for that still exists in modern Windows. Of course, the holdover stuff is stuff that most of us would rather not have around...

Another thought: IE, look at where it was when MS bought it. Look at it now. Some of the stuff on their is their innovation, some of it is cloned from things others have done. Some of it is good, some of it is bad.

I could create a new mail program with some inventive new feature, or buy the code/license for an existing one and add it. In both cases I'm being just as innovative, but in the latter case, I'm being more effective and efficient about it.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Gr8Apes]

buying does not indicate a lack of innovation.

Look at word is now from where it started, or Windows for that matter. Yes, let's. Word - POS that still cannot consistently print text from printer to printer. That may in part be because of...Windows a POS that still runs like shit, even after 15 years of "development".

OK, two bad examples:

MS /Bought/ DOS, and they innovated (or in some cases as another slasdotter mentioned, pilfered) quite a bit onto it to get another OS - the 9x branch of Windows. Actually, MS were fortunate to be able to buy DOS after they'd effectively already sold it. And windows certainly wasn't much of an innovation. It was so bad, people regularly dropped out of it to actually get some work done. The later 9x versions were a little slicker and certainly worked better than the previous incarnations, but were still flaky as hell. DOS mode was used heavily before the first service packs came out, along with new versions of third party software. In any case, the Win9x interface was still a bare shadow of the functionality of Next or PM on OS/2, and no where near as solid as either of those, Solaris or Irix.

Another bad example of merely copying others. That's not innovation.

Another thought: IE, look at where it was when MS bought it. Look at it now. Some of the stuff on their is their innovation, some of it is cloned from things others have done. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. IE - manipulated into dominance by MS with what is undoubtedly the worst browser implementation out there with some of the worst features (ActiveX being #1 on that list). It fails to render standard HTML. It fails in CSS support. It fails in security. It just fails.

What's good about it? At least prior to IE 4.02 (I think it was) you could at least effectively uninstall the POS.

List me some innovation. I see none in your examples.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[EvanED]

Actually this does show some maturity from M$ if this is a "approved" statement.

Unlike your oh-so-clever use of "M$".

Re:Far more interesting admission

[EvanED]

What's good about it? At least prior to IE 4.02 (I think it was) you could at least effectively uninstall the POS.

Personally, I think that IE 5 and 5.5 were the best browsers available at their time, at least on Windows, and IE 6 was for a while. Netscape 4 was pretty good, but it was starting to get to the point where it was prohibitively feature-bloated. IE may not have done standard HTML and CSS perfectly, but at the time CSS was fairly newly standardized. Netscape 5 or 6 (I forget which one was released and which was skipped...) was a piece of crap, which left you using either IE 5/5.5/6 or Netscape 4.72, and I felt that IE was the better choice. It wasn't until Mozilla started becoming mature that there was another decent competitor, and not until Firefox became mature that there was something better.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[dgatwood]

Case in point, iTunes started out life as SoundJam MP. I think it is safe to say that it, combined with the iPod that it enabled, has radically altered the landscape of music sales. Significant innovation, in large part stemming from an acquisition. Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro have radically altered the landscape of the field of video editing and DVD development. Final Cut Pro was originally a Macromedia product called Final Cut. DVD Studio Pro? Astarte DVDirector. Both products have substantially improved since the acquisition, of course, but they are still innovation through acquisition and improvement rather than through starting from scratch.

Everybody innovates at least in part through acquisition. The difference is that Microsoft seems to innovate almost exclusively through acquisition. :-D

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Khuffie]

No, MS (note the lack of childish dollar sign in the abbreviation), did not want to allow security and virus software makers to hook directly into the kernel, which is a completely different thing.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Gr8Apes]

Netscape's demise was partly due to IE's tying, and partly to internal stupid mistakes. They were the better browser when they were releasing. There was also Opera at the time, which has been better than IE since IE took over market dominance from Netscape in 99. (Yes, it was that recently, although everyone saw it coming)

Netscape 6 was a flaky POS, and left you with Netscape 4.78 if you were virulently anti-MS. :)

Re:Far more interesting admission

[jimstapleton]

IE 5+ was faster and more stable than the alternatives (Netscape, Mozilla, and even [just barely] firefox) on windows, up to IE 6. I'm not sure about 7, speed isn't the only thing in the world, and I switched during 6's lifespan. Actually I find in any OS I've used Firefox 1.5 is less stable than IE under Windows. I can't use Firefox2 because it doesn't work with some webapps I have to work with.

Just because you don't like it and it doesn't have flaws does not mean that ActiveX was not an innovation. Please refer to a dictionary as for /why/.

I've had a very good track record with Word printing consistantly between printers, better than with Open Office (barely) or Acrobat Reader (I had three HP printers and a Xerox at my old office, it was random which would properly print a PDF with images, regardless of the OS that sent the Job, under no circumstances would more than three of them work, often only one would - and which it was, was never consistant).

Re:Far more interesting admission

[jimstapleton]

I found opera to be slow, unstable, rendered poorly, and to have a clunky, ugly interface compared to IE. I gave it a couple of months at someone's insistance during the IE5 days, and didn't like it. Tried it a few times since, most of the issues improved, and it may be competative now, but I find Firefox suits my needs well enough and don't feel the urge to try opera yet again, after finding it unpleasant several times before.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[jimstapleton]

Very good example. I don't like either product in the least, but I nonetheless will agree that they were innovative.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape 5 or 6 (I forget which one was released and which was skipped...) was a piece of crap, which left you using either IE 5/5.5/6 or Netscape 4.72

6 was released, but it was based on Mozilla, which was quite mature at the time. Mozilla Milestone 10+ releases beat the pants off of IE 5.5. Firefox nee Firebird nee Phoenix didn't come along for a while after that -- after 1.0 I think. For a blast from the past, try the old Milestone builds from '99-'00

Re:Far more interesting admission

[MMInterface]

People at MS say stuff like this all the time, they just don't go public with it. And why would they? I don't see their competition admitting their faults anymore then they do.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[suv4x4]

"Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products." - I can't believe the guy just admitted that. To a major publication like ZDNet, no less.

This is not bothering me, but this quote is:

According to the security manager, security is only a small part of what Microsoft does, suggesting it does not have as much security expertise as established security vendors.

I hope they really mean "security expertise" as in "antivirus detection and filtering software" and not as in *really* "security expertise" .. because.. damn.. over 90% of the desktop computers out there run their damn OS.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Ucklak]

IE was the only availble browser in the 5. series so if it's the only turd in the punchbowl, of course it's the best browser at the time.
All Linux had was Netscape based in the 4.0 series at that time and the Mac had IE5 (Tasman Engine) which was better than the Windows counterpart.
Galeon(Linux Only) was actually Netscape 5.0 in the user agent and was decent/better than IE5.
IE6 was basically IE5.5 with the fixes that Mac IE5 had and better CSS support.

Once Netscape released the abysmal 6.0, it actually sparked the browser wars again. Netscape 6.2 was decent and once 7.x series was released, a better browser than IE finally hit the market.

Mozilla 1 was out which was 6 of one, half dozen of the other equal to Netscape 7.x, still much better than that crappy IE6.

Opera consistently released candidtates which were decent but nothing great. Opera 6 was neat then Netscape 7.x beat the pants off it. Opera 7 was nothing great.
Opera 8 was great and Opera 9 was even better.

It's nice to be able to have many choices which wasn't the case at the turn of the century.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Gr8Apes]

IE 5+ certainly is not faster. There is a well-known configuration change you can make in Mozilla/FF if you want the "apparent" speed of IE. There's a 250ms delay in initiating rendering to allow the page to load. IE starts rendering as the page streams in. The "speed" is misleading, as Mozilla/FF will usually render the full page faster, although IE seems to start earlier, it has to reflow the page.

ActiveX is an abomination. Generally, innovation in the tech industry has connotations of "good", but you're technically correct and the proper statement is "ActiveX was a terrible innovation, much like MS Bob but worse".

I had issues with Word printing the same page on HP LaserJet IIs, LaserJet IIIs, LaserJet IVs, and QMS laser printers. You even had issues between a LaserJet IIIM and LaserJet IIIP. Paragraphs and lines of text would vary from printer to printer. This is directly due to the GDI architecture used by most printer drivers within Windows. I do not believe they've ever fixed this, nor that it is fixable without a core architectural change.

Postscript, on the other hand, always rendered the same information in the same way on a page. It's why we used Postscript to print all our documents. There's nothing more infuriating that going on Page 9, para 3, line 4 - next to word 'x', wait, you don't have that? You neither? OK, the para starts with... You have that on page 10? Wow, thinking about that still makes me cringe.

WordPerfect also did not suffer from this problem, quite possibly because my version was DOS based and had its own printer driver set.

I only recently printed PDFs, and they've always printed precisely how I'd expect as related to what I see on a single page.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[ehrichweiss]

And just why is the use of a dollar sign in M$ "childish"? Last I checked our language was evolving and we accept words like "ginormous" and "metrosexual" but heaven-for-fuqing-bid that someone use a dollar sign without permission, huh.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Khuffie]

Because it makes you sound like a 5 year old brat that's taking potshots outside the scope of the argument. Not to mention it immediately calls your bias and judgement into play. Oh, and the fact that I can't decide to suddenly call, say, Linux by Leeeenoooooox just because I feel like it. The company is called Microsoft. It's short form is MS.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[sharkey]

Scary thing is that only a year ago, it almost looked like M$ would not allow other security vendors to release virus software for Vista and OneCare was going to be the only option

Umm, wasn't it just Symantec and McAfee claiming that because they didn't want to change the way their products worked?

Re:Far more interesting admission

[ehrichweiss]

Who cares what it calls into play? *YOU* are immediately calling your judgement into play by referring to it as childish instead of addressing a real point of arguement but you're not stopping are ya? It's much easier to attack the way someone speaks than to say something intelligent in response. Do you make fun of people with speech impediments as well?

Just for your info, Linus originally intended Linux pronounced as Lee-noox so that wouldn't be a problem for those of us who are already in the know. Cheers.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Khuffie]

Note that I actually did address the real point of the argument in my response. You never cared to retort, only mentioning me pointing out that M$ is childish.

And no, I don't make fun of people with speech impediments. I do make fun of people who can speak perfectly normally, but choose to speak like someone who does.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Master of Transhuman]

Yeah, this guy definitely will be on the unemployment line tomorrow.

The things he said will get him canned in a heartbeat.

Not that they weren't all true, but Microsoft is into "truthiness", not "truth."

This is also a clear demonstration that Bill's intention in getting into the antivirus business was simply another attempt to soak his customers for money after being the cause of the problem in the first place.

This guy's statement that "security is only a little part of Microsoft" clearly shows the attitude at Microsoft. No matter how "little" it may be, if Bill can make some money out of it, he will - regardless of how crappy the software is that's being sold.

Bill Gates - one of the truly pathetic assholes of the world.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Master of Transhuman]

Opera SLOW?

What version were you using - .0.8.1?

Opera has been faster than IE for at least the last six years. It has also been more stable than IE for that length of time. Back when I using IE 5.0 - and 5.5, that POS crashed on me daily, if not hourly.

I think Firefox is less stable than Opera as well, although that may be merely a perception of mine since I use it more than I do Opera. At the moment, since Firefox's file download process doesn't work with tons of Web sites (on Kubuntu Linux anyway, seems to be OK on Windows), I use Opera to download files from those sites with no problems. The ability to Bittorrent on Opera is nice, too, although I use it rarely.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[ehrichweiss]

Ok, so you addressed the point AND found a way to judge someone's maturity level from a single character. That's mature.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[ehrichweiss]

Just to be clear, it took at least 50 characters for me to judge your level of maturity so you must be better than I. *cough*

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Master of Transhuman]

Interesting you mention printing PDFs in the context of printing problems with Windows and IE.

I had a client just last night who called because she couldn't print a PDF from a Web site from within IE 6.

She printed one PDF with no problem, although the printing was "slow" (due to the rendering needed for the HP LaserJet to print the complex PDF formatting, I told her.) But the second one she tried to print did not print at all.

I checked the print queue - it wasn't there. I had her go to the Web site, view the document, which opened in Adobe Reader. I used the Adobe printer icon to print the file - no problem. Then I tried using the IE File menu Print command - it wouldn't send the document to the printer at all!

Got out of IE, went back in, went to the Web site, opened the document, tried again - this time it printed from the IE File menu print button.

Only explanation I could give her was, as usual, "Windows wierdness."

She had been told by some other techie always to use the File menu Print command, so my using the Adobe PDF printer icon confused her. I told her if a document is opened by an application within another application, it's probably better to use the inner application's print button since it's the one actually presenting the document. I also told her that when she has stupid issues like this, to exit the application (in this case, IE), then go back in and try again. If it still doesn't work, reboot Windows and try again.

In other words, as usual, Windows and the products running on it are utterly unreliable.

Although to be fair, nothing infuriates me more than to click on an application shortcut in Linux, watch the bouncing ball bounce for a while, then go away, and the application does not even start up. This is equally pathetic. Regardless of the UNIX tendency to perform "quietly", it would nice to be told WHY the frikkin' application couldn't run! Usually, restarting the session, as opposed to rebooting the machine, corrects such problems - but they shouldn't exist in the first place.

ALL software is CRAP.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Simon Garlick]

IE - manipulated into dominance by MS with what is undoubtedly the worst browser implementation out there with some of the worst features

I think you're looking back with rose-tinted goggles there. When IE 4.0 came out it was far and away the best web browser available. It was faster, used screen real-estate more efficiently, had a better bookmarking system, and rendered both HTML *and* CSS better than the competition. Microsoft has released some crappy software in its time, no argument there, but IE 4.0 deserved to be the most widely-used browser in the world.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[rtb61]

M$ Onecare - their profits, please pay now, we know it doesn't work, it costs to much to test it, our time cost us money, you time costs us nothing mwuhaha.

I wonder if it is the only anti virus program that specifically excludes the ability to actually remove viruses in it's warranty, billy goat logic.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Ash-Fox]

Opera has been faster than IE for at least the last six years. It has also been more stable than IE for that length of time. Back when I using IE 5.0 - and 5.5, that POS crashed on me daily, if not hourly.

Comparing IE7 and Opera right now... IE7 feels faster to me (opening cnn.com in tabs multiple times in both).

At the moment, since Firefox's file download process doesn't work with tons of Web sites (on Kubuntu Linux anyway, seems to be OK on Windows)

I use Kubuntu and Firefox, the download manager works fine. It's just annoying that it tries to use Gnome's default applications for filetypes instead of KDE's when you clck 'open'.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Gr8Apes]

Well, I likewise think you're mistaken. Wikipedia confirms that IE 4s release heralded the "integration" of OS and browser. This "integration" is precisely the pile of crap that made IE completely unusable. It may have rendered "better", but it was not a better browser.

I remember lots of people getting up in arms about the changes to their systems after installing IE 4, and the fact that they couldn't uninstall it. I'd have to say that IE 4 was probably the "worst" browser out there, but that's based on the entire package, not just how it rendered a page.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[sumdumass]

did not want to allow security and virus software makers to hook directly into the kernel, which is a completely different thing.

Isn't this a mute point with no actualy mean when Microsoft's once care does exaclty what they are forbiding others to do? Why should symantec or Mcafey(whoever) need to change the way their product works and possibly the effectivness of it when Microsoft can use the same process to it's advantage?

Here is an article describing the exact problem. Tell me were he is wrong? It would appear that the issue is about more than the kernel space. It is about hidden APIs and everything else Microsoft has been accused of all along.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[sumdumass]

I know of plety of people who have no clue what netscape was or mozilla untill they were recently told. These are people who started on windows 95/98. Tying IE was effective in this aspect and probably did more damage to any other competition then anything else. I used netscape since 2.1 (I think)comming out of the DOS/windows 3.1 and 3.11 windows for workgroups. The only reason I knew about Netscape is because I got into it before IE was forced at you.

People say nescape made a few internal errors that contributed to ther demise. My position is that they were forced to make decisions they never should have had to. Making a bad decision because and having it bite you because someone did something to force you into that process doesn't take anything away to the practice that place you there in hte first place. I have every bit of confidence that if there was an open choice, netscape never would have lost and the internet would have become something more then it is today. Netscape was the one comming out with internet voice chat and calling sionce version 3.0 (gold) and they were the first to nativly support java, and all.

The internet effectivly stoped develpoing/inovating and started refining what already exists when Microsoft finaly ahut out netscape. It isn't even close to what it was or how it was going before.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Master of Transhuman]

My problem with Firefox stems from sites like Rapidshare.

When you go through the Rapidshare process to download a file, at some point you get the Firefox prompt to download the file. When you click on the download radio button, Firefox does "something", I don't know what, and Rapidshare proceeds to tell you that either you've already downloaded the file, or some other weird error message.

I have similar problems with other similar sites - so many that I gave up using Firefox's download process and instead installed the DownThemAll extension which works fine with these sites.

I think it's not so much an issue with the Firefox download process as it is with the JavaScript or something used by certain sites to control downloads. I haven't bothered to burrow into the source code for these pages to see what it might be, as the DownThemAll extension works well and offers additional flexibility.

But the odd thing is that this doesn't appear to be a problem with the Windows version of Firefox. That I don't understand.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Ash-Fox]

When you go through the Rapidshare process to download a file, at some point you get the Firefox prompt to download the file. When you click on the download radio button, Firefox does "something", I don't know what, and Rapidshare proceeds to tell you that either you've already downloaded the file, or some other weird error message.

I use rapidshare occasionally, never had this problem.

I am using Kubuntu Edgy (6.10), Firefox 2.0.0.2+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Master of Transhuman]

I'm still on Firefox 2.0. I suppose I should upgrade. I'll do that now and see if it makes a difference.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Master of Transhuman]

Okay, upgrading fixed the download problem on both Rapidshare and the Corrsmisc site.

However, Firefox STILL wants to add a .bin extension to every file downloaded! That was the OTHER problem I was having with the downloads.

So it's back to DownThemAll - which does NOT have that problem - until I can figure out why the MIME type detection isn't correct.

Re:Far more interesting admission

[Ash-Fox]

However, Firefox STILL wants to add a .bin extension to every file downloaded! That was the OTHER problem I was having with the downloads.

I don't have that problem either... You could try seeing if it's your profile screwed it up by moving .mozilla to another path like .mozilla.old and then starting Firefox.

(To get back your old settings and profile, delete .mozilla and move .mozilla.old to .mozilla)

You see that is the MS Advantage.

[jellomizer]

If something goes wrong Microsoft takes the blame not you. You could run Linux for years and when one thing goes wrong you can get fired. But by choosing Microsoft you have many many major problems a month and still keep you job and even get a raise because you can blame MS on them. Even though MS will only say sorry and do little to fix the problem but still your job is safe.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[kebes]

You're absolutely right, and I hate it.

I use Linux extensively (at home and at work), but I'm always afraid to suggest it as a solution for others. Because then somehow I become responsible when things don't go perfectly smoothly. If instead I just recommend a "status quo" solution, then any bugs encountered will just be treated as "business as usual." The reality is that any software deployment will have annoyances along the way (whether Linux-based or Windows-based). The difference is exactly what you describe: "No one is fired for choosing Microsoft" whereas if you recommend Linux, you become "the guy to blame."

I'm not sure how to fix this state of affairs. It's a totally unreasonable double-standard, but it will exist whenever there is a defacto standard like MS has become (and IBM was, at one time). I think this is actually one of the major (and usually unmentioned) roadblocks to Linux adoption. Yes, you have some vocal Linux advocates... but the majority of us who really understand the advantages of Linux are scared into silence. (Or maybe I'm just a coward.)

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[porkThreeWays]

HAHA. No, that's not the way the world works. They will then ask why you chose the product because Microsoft is notorious for bugs. There's no winning. I've NEVER heard of someone blaming a vendor and their boss just going "ok, not your fault". It's "you get on the phone right now and tell them if they don't issue patch X this second we are going to sue" etc etc. This is really why administrators need to be programmers as well. I find real programmers less susceptible to be fooled by clever marketing material as opposed to administrators whom choose a product because they get fooled into buying a "solution" (btw, calling software a "solution" was the biggest insult to our industry's intelligence ever). I can bet most MS product installs out there rode solely on the name and have nothing to do with product quality.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[Anonymous Coward]

When I started at my current job, at a startup, they had WYSE terminals connected to a Windows Terminal Server. We were growing fast, and I was in a position to decide what technology we would deploy moving forward. I wasn't going to be personally responsible for Windows (they can't pay me enough) so I standardized on Ubuntu Linux on cheap desktop machines.

We ran like that for a year. Many of the people (especially the sales folks) would constantly complain about problems. Problems that would mysteriously vanish when I was looking. Things like "I don't know where I put such-and-such a file."

Then the real company leadership, who had all been busy with another project, came in. Literally overnight, they decided that we would replace all the linux desktops with Windows. Fortunately at this point we had several junior techs that could do the job. And did.

I now have the only Linux desktop at the company. The windows machines have constant problems -- (I can't read my email! I can't log into the domain! etc...) BUT -- the important thing here is, no one complains. When there are constant problems now, it's not about how much the system sucks. It's just the way things are. Whereas on Linux, it was Linux's fault.

I'm personally convinced that there are far more problems on the Windows installs than there ever were on the Linux installs. The other techs who have more involvement in the desktops these days agree. But it doesn't matter, because Windows is the standard, any problems are also the standard.

Screw 'em. I'm just glad it's not MY responsibility. And no, I didn't get demoted or fired, I got promoted out of having to deal with office matters. Now I just work on the production systems, which are 100% open-source based.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[dthable]

I don't think I've ever heard a manager threaten to sue a vendor right off the bat unless you get what you need ASAP. For the most part, it's a well choreographed dance where the managers act pissed, the first sales guy takes the heat and then his manager offers some licenses or other feel good BS and everyone leaves happy.

No one ever got fired for buying IBM....I mean Microsoft.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[kbahey]

This is akin to the old saying : no one was ever fired for buying IBM.

It appeals to the CYA mentality in large corporations, and playing it safe.

If people continue to buy into this, then the status quo will not change.

The vendor, be it IBM or Microsoft spread this FUD around to make buyers, recommenders and approvers more risk averse.

The fact of the matter is : the field of technology is constantly changing, and nothing is a safe buy for ever.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[OriginalArlen]

Your job is safe in the short term. In the long term, competitors with a lower cost base will eat your lunch (because you know that 100% MS shops are more likely to be pissing away huge piles of money on expensive brochureware "Enterprise Solutions" and zillions of clueless, ill-educated "consultants".

Of course IT spend is only a portion of your capex and opex, but when all other things are equal (which they will be when averaged over millions of businesses across the world) cheap/free software that works will win.

Mind you, in 1998 I thought Oracle would be bankrupt by now - that's the power of lock-in for you I guess...

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[Master of Transhuman]

I have to admit that while I believe Linux can be used to replaced Windows in a corporate environment, the REAL issue is precisely this sort of human relations problem.

It could be that when you put the initial Linux solution in, there wasn't enough "prep" of the users. So ANY change would have been resisted, not just Linux.

You get taught this in decent system analysis classes - the "user prep" is critical to making ANY IT change work.

I changed the user accounts on the machines of one of my clients from administrator to limited as the start of a basic security hardening. I explained to the users that this was a basic necessity - never run as administrator. The users complained they have to switch to administrator too often to run like this. Even after I pointed out the "runas" command, they still had complaints. They viewed their machines as if they were home machines, not corporate machines attached to a network. They couldn't see that running as administrator, while easier from a production standpoint, was a threat to the entire network and that if a virus got in, it could drop the whole network - a serious production impediment.

Finally, I had to switch them back to administrator mode. They were attaching customer hard drives to their machines (to convert customer video files) and the NTFS wouldn't allow anybody but administrator to access the drives. The files on the drives were owned by an SID which was not recognized by the host system. On XP Pro, you could change the permissions to give the Everyone account full control of those drives - but half their machines run XP Home (and the owner doesn't want to spend money upgrading them to Pro.) On Home you have to go into Safe Mode to access the system Administrator account (or use a command line tool) - which is way too much work. Even my admin-level account can't do it in XP Home. I considered having them take ownership - which could be done from my admin account - but the problem with that is that when the drives are returned to the customer, then the customer wouldn't be able to access them. Having the Everyone account have full control would have been an acceptable compromise, but isn't feasible under XP Home because of the need to do it from Safe Mode.

You just can't win. There are just too many mistakes compounded on other mistakes in the typical business environment.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[Master of Transhuman]

Marcus Ranum's rant "Stupid on Software" covers this situation in detail.

NO corporation EVER sues a software company for non-performance.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[Ash-Fox]

You could run Linux for years and when one thing goes wrong you can get fired.

I don't get it. Why wouldn't the commercial Linux we'd (the company) have with Novell/SuSE/Redhat or Canonical be to blame?

Even though MS will only say sorry and do little to fix the problem but still your job is safe.

My job is safe, even if there is a problem with Linux. Stop lying.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[jellomizer]

You forget. Your competitors are most likely MS shops as well. Secondly The difference between Windows and Linux on company expenses are so miniscule on the grand scheme of things. You as a company and if you do save money using Linux. THe money saved will not normally make or break the company. It may mean the difference between new chairs or you sick with the current ones that are not as comfortable for an other year.
Secondly as a consultant myself I work to offer the best solution that I think will work for the company. If you go to the company and you see they are already a MS shop you are not ethically going push a Linux solution to them, because there will be a large up front cost and as the point of this thread they will not be happy with the solution because they are going to look for what is wrong with the solution that they were forced to change and not is better. If they are a Unix shop, or a partial Linux shop then you may have some room to extend the use of Linux into more areas. Beside pushing companies away form windows and toward Linux what they should really focus on is Cross Platform Development so switching from system to system doesn't break the bank. That is where they will really save money.

Re:You see that is the MS Advantage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple Solution: Mount the drives on a Linux box and share it via Samba.

Microsoft makes users do beta testing now?

[qwijibo]

How is this different from practically every other software company? Sure, it would be nice if users weren't the beta testers, but this isn't exactly a new tactic. This has been going on for at least 20 years. I just can't attest to having direct professional experience with the tactic prior to that.

Hitting aggressive(unrealistic) deadlines has always taken priority over testing or finishing products prior to the release.

Re:Microsoft makes users do beta testing now?

[MightyMartian]

I'm afraid you're right. In the olden days of software, money was made off of support contracts, and new version and new feature rollouts were relatively scarce. The whole purpose of software was so that some big guy in a suit could charge big dollars to maintain the system.

When that business cycle was finally toppled in favor of the "new feature every year, new version every three or four", pulling more of a company's revenue into the software itself, the necessity came to pump out new stuff with as much frequency as possible, or at least to keep promising new features even when the product didn't actually exist. MS really started doing it with Chicago, putting out artists' renditions of screen layouts in friendly mags, still missing deadlines, and ultimately coming out with a terrible product (remember for the first 32-bit version of Office... which wasn't really 32-bit at all).

Microsoft's AV software, which had the AV community flipping out thinking they were screwed, has turned into one of the company's biggest embarassments. But it's not the only one. Vista incompatibilities are a serious headache, and a lot of folks just aren't upgrading. With the US economy looking like it's going into downturn, they're not going to be making up for it in OEM boxes.

I'm sure they'll survive this time, but the business model they're running with is showing cracks. I'll wager the other AV guys like Symantec are rolling around on the floor laughing at this, while MS's reputation at being able to manage the viruses that are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities largely of their its own creation is going down the tubes.

Re:Microsoft makes users do beta testing now?

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm afraid you're right. In the olden days of software, money was made off of support contracts

That model really hasn't gone away with enterprise software, it's just morphed. You still need a support contract, and you still need to pay someone lots of money to maintain the system. The difference is that these days you need to pay a whole team of people to integrate and maintain the little pieces morphed together as a whole system -- this is usually called the 'IT Department' these days. :)

I'm sure they'll survive this time, but the business model they're running with is showing cracks.

Their business model has shown cracks for quite sometime -- the biggest of them being the wayyy late arrival of Vista, with most of its highly-toted promised features (i.e., WinFS, etc.) replaced with some shine and polish that's already been in its closest competitor, Mac OS X, for three years.

Re:Microsoft makes users do beta testing now?

[MightyMartian]

I'm afraid you're right. In the olden days of software, money was made off of support contracts

That model really hasn't gone away with enterprise software, it's just morphed. You still need a support contract, and you still need to pay someone lots of money to maintain the system. The difference is that these days you need to pay a whole team of people to integrate and maintain the little pieces morphed together as a whole system -- this is usually called the 'IT Department' these days. :)

Agreed. Now we've got the worst of both worlds. Big dollars for the product (particularly to keep up with the frequency of releases) and big dollars to keep said product functioning.

I'm sure they'll survive this time, but the business model they're running with is showing cracks.

Their business model has shown cracks for quite sometime -- the biggest of them being the wayyy late arrival of Vista, with most of its highly-toted promised features (i.e., WinFS, etc.) replaced with some shine and polish that's already been in its closest competitor, Mac OS X, for three years.

It's a pretty severe problem. There simply isn't very much in Vista to make jump and go "I NEED THAT!" Windows 2000 had it, particularly for servers, XP had it for finally producing an NT-based general consumer OS, Server 2003 had it for cleaning up the issues in Win2k, but Vista doesn't have anything that demands a good chunk of the marketplace turn into early adopters. A good many people are faced with hardware upgrades or replacement. Then they're faced with potential incompatibilities. Whether it's business users, home users or heavy gamers, Vista simply isn't ready yet, but like Chicago/Win95 before it, MS has to get something to market. Even if it isn't ready. Even if it hasn't half of what was promised. It makes no difference, because the marketing machine that Microsoft really is requires the Windows/Office behemoth keep playing the version trick every few years or risk the whole thing coming down around their ears.

Re:Microsoft makes users do beta testing now?

[oconnorcjo]

Microsoft's AV software, which had the AV community flipping out thinking they were screwed, has turned into one of the company's biggest embarassments. But it's not the only one. Vista incompatibilities are a serious headache, and a lot of folks just aren't upgrading. With the US economy looking like it's going into downturn, they're not going to be making up for it in OEM boxes.

I'm sure they'll survive this time, but the business model they're running with is showing cracks. I'll wager the other AV guys like Symantec are rolling around on the floor laughing at this, while MS's reputation at being able to manage the viruses that are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities largely of their its own creation is going down the tubes.

IE was a joke against netscape when it first came out.

Excel was a joke against lotus 123 for awhile.

Wordperfect was better than MS Word.

The fact that thier product sucks now changes nothing. Nobody laughs when microsoft says they are entering your market. Nobody.

Re:Microsoft makes users do beta testing now?

[dcam]

I'm sure they'll survive this time, but the business model they're running with is showing cracks. I'll wager the other AV guys like Symantec are rolling around on the floor laughing at this, while MS's reputation at being able to manage the viruses that are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities largely of their its own creation is going down the tubes.

I don't think you totally understand Microsoft's business model. Their first release of a product is often quite bad (particularly when compared to other products) but they catch up fast. The products that don't suck in first releases are the ones they buy in.

Bad MS only products (early releases)
- windows
- Live
- Windows
- Office
- IE

Products bought in
- MSSQL

Microsoft's bigger problem is they can't attract good people any more, and the way they run their business means they burn out good people, so they need a constant stream.

Re:Microsoft makes users do beta testing now?

[CrossChris]

Just say "One Care" in a French accent!

That says it all!

Microsoft is not a security company

[rainhill]

"Microsoft is not a security company. Security is important, but it's just a little part of Microsoft," Gee, that's new.

standard answer

[mastershake_phd]

While Exchange 2007 doesn't cause issues, users with older versions may see their email quarantined as a matter of course.

It wouldn't be a problem if you just upgraded...

I guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mircosoft Cares....

If Mr. Edelman would be a cop

[CaptainZapp]

He would be writing parking tickets in a rural, Siberian town real soon.

There is also no 64-bit support

[benzapp]

It's quite amusing when a person installs Vista 64-bit edition, and is prompted to install an antivirus product like OneCare. There is a link to the site right on startup where you can order. It actually lets you purchase it and everything, then you go to install it - and it tells you it's on an unsupported platform.

Whoever runs the OneCare group should be fired!

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[CaptainZapp]

Whoever runs the OneCare group should be fired!

Not to worry

He'll be writing parking tickets in a rural, Siberian town real soon now.

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[Achromatic1978]

Sure it does. /IF/ you want to buy it after ignoring the system requirements right off the product homepage, why should they stop you?

"Note that the x64-based versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista are not currently supported."

Pretty damned clear to me. If you want to act like you've been lobotomised, see that, and say, what the hell, I'll order it anyway, ain't no website programming that's going to save you from yourself.

Yay for FUD>

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[VEGETA_GT]

Whoever runs the OneCare group should be fired! fired out of a cannon into the sun.

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[Anonymous Coward]

I think his point is that the OS shouldn't point you to software that isn't even supported by the OS - which is a bit embarrassing considering they're from the same company. It seems like it would be pretty simple just to not point there on the 64bit version, then point people there when it is supported (windows update of the system)

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[Pollardito]

i think what he's saying is that the person installing 64-bit Vista shouldn't be prompted to buy OneCare, not that OneCare has to support every platform or that the OneCare website should detect that you're running an unsupported OS

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[Achromatic1978]

It should (but then, when it is supported, what is to happen? a patch to allow it to prompt?) - the website should note 64 bit Windows (although I can't remember if it's flagged in the User Agent, though of course you have ActiveX), but the page you go to has a lovely clear list of "system requirements" clearly specifying "XP and Vista 32 bit. x64 editions of each are currently unsupported".

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[benzapp]

Ok, I haven't checked in a couple of weeks - but this was newly added. Check out the support.microsoft.com forums yourself. There are many posts there. There are also all of the retail boxes out there which proudly proclaim support for Windows Vista, without regard to the version.

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[Deagol]

"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy."
-- Tom Waits

Wasn't that Frank Zappa?

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[sponga]

You shoulda been there for the beta testing and feedback.

Their whole AV department must be made up of all people from India; no offense but the feedback on what should be added to the program was poorly integrated into the program and it has little to no options for customizing things you would have in other products.

The whole beta was a joke and I am glad I stuck with BitDefender suite as they had a working stable product which would actually detect and was constantly updated.

Half assed presentation and emails sent out about their product which don't make you enthusiastic for it at all; than the $9.00 a year for 3 liscense offer which ofcourse I did not take. So many better free or cheaper working options for security; which I was afraid because of some fear mongering around here about how MS was gonna shut out 3rd party AV/FW because of closed systems. So far everything works on Vista like it did with XP minus the Windows Defender and OneCare.

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[Master of Transhuman]

Why not a patch? This is a product that updates itself.

I also see no comment about the retail boxes promoting it as supporting Windows Vista.

I know you're trying to keep your job after having said that security is a "little thing" at Microsoft, but this won't help you...it's too lame.

The bottom line: the product pushes someone to buy another product that is unsupported by the product.

No amount of weaseling changes that. It's just stupid - not to mention probably deliberately fraudulent. It's on a par with AT&T offering 3Mbps DSL service to people too far out of range to actually get it.

Re:There is also no 64-bit support

[Achromatic1978]

That's stupid. It's not on par with any such thing. It's saying "We have a service. Due to other issues, this currently is unavailable to you. We're not going to stop you purchasing it."

It's definitely not fraudulent.

Is it fraudulent, too, if it was decided to pop up an ad for a game that says on its page, that it's an XBox 360 game? "OMG, fraud, they let me buy an XBox game even though I didn't have an XBox?" Yeesh.

Glad when they do

[HangingChad]

Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products.

And most times I'm glad for that. Because most of the time the products they buy at least start out good before they trash it with their corporate branding.

SQL Server was one of their better products for a long time. Not so much now but it used to be a reasonably-priced and functional piece of software, at least at the low end of the load scale. Now it's like most of their products: Easy to manage but bloated beyond all recognition.

Re:Glad when they do

[Anonymous Coward]

SQL Server was one of their better products

Thank sybase. SQL Server used to be one of the better products from sybase.

Re:Glad when they do

[oliverthered]

that should be Easy to manage until you get a problem (usually caused by buggy software) and then it's impossible to do anything because your hands are tied.

I've never had a problem on Linux that I couldn't get to the bottom of, even if it meant I had to fix bugs in the kernel source, at least I had the source to find and fix the bugs.

Re:Glad when they do

[cosmocain]

SQL Server was one of their better products for a long time.

The code base for MS SQL Server (prior to version 7.0) originated in Sybase SQL Server - yeah, they "bought" that one, too...

Re:Glad when they do

[dcam]

Yeah it's interesting. We have a customer who rolled out 2k5. Same hardware. One long running report took double the time it took on 2000.

Microsoft adds features, not performance. The one exception was Win2K3.

And the next step is...

[jojoba_oil]

The next part is to admit that when they cannot buy a product, they steal the idea instead.

Re:And the next step is...

[Ilgaz]

The next part is to admit that when they cannot buy a product, they steal the idea instead. Who doesn't steal ideas? Don't make me talk about a certain company which does provide better software/support or their fans will kill me. :) I am used to getting banned from IRC rooms using top of the line hardware from them anyway.

They steal down to $20 shareware.

Quick!

[Rob T Firefly]

Somebody get that quote onto a clever t-shirt on Cafepress or something, because I want to wear it NOW.

Re:Quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you want quarantined today? -- NoOneCare © ® (TM) Microsoft

It finds itself to be a virus too

[Ian McBeth]

I took the 90 day trial of OneCare a while back. It worked fine for the first 45 days, and then It Inexplicably decided one of its key files needed deleting (didn't call it a virus) and then I found out the only way to fix it was to completely remove the product and then reinstall it. I went back to Norton after that, At least Norton's Add/Remove function has a repair the install option.

Re:It finds itself to be a virus too

[Master of Transhuman]

Heh, heh, wait until you have to UPDATE Norton - which will then fail one of its updates - not the actual AV update, one of their other half dozen different updates - TWO of my clients have this problem now.

Or wait until it tells you that it has an "internal problem" and must be uninstalled and reinstalled - one of those two clients has THAT problem on yet another machine. TWO different Norton problems on two machines out of 22 machines - that's a ten percent failure rate.

Then wait until you have to uninstall it - and it doesn't.

Then you have to go their support Web site, jump through hoops to download a tool to REALLY uninstall it.

Norton is total bloated, slow, resource-hogging, unreliable CRAP - which is no longer in the top five AV detectors anyway based on AV Comparatives studies. Nobody should use it regardless of their AV needs.

Re:It finds itself to be a virus too

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you use NAV on a corporate network? We use Symantec Antivirus. Slow, bloated, and a bitch to uninstall 50% of the time, I'll give you.

GeCAD was actually decent

[RootWind]

GeCAD's RAV use to be decent back in the day. The problem seemed to be that they did pretty much nothing but sit around (or transferred to different projects) after they were bought by Microsoft. By the time Microsoft planned on having OneCare, RAV had pretty deteriorated in technology with an only half-heartedly updated detection database (no product to support after all).

Re:GeCAD was actually decent

[drinkypoo]

This is the most common story in technology buyouts. Here's another example: TGV's Multinet was the fastest TCP/IP stack for Windows 3.x. They were working on a product for Windows 95, another lightning-fast stack (windows 95's stack was a bit of a pile of shit, as I'm sure we all know) and Cisco terminated the project after letting them noodle around on it for months, and put the engineers on a team developing software for cable modems.

Re:GeCAD was actually decent

[silviuc]

RAV was a great AV engine and MS bought it, many voices say, because it was a very good/mature solution for having and antivirus on a linux mail server as opposed to bitdefender. They (Microsoft) let the technology rot, and now they have a patchy AV solution as a result

Also note that GeCad sold only RAV to MS. Checkout http://www.gecad.com/ if you want to see what they've been doing since then.

Too Funny, and RAV

[PhYrE2k2]

Too funny: "Microsoft is not a security company. Security is important, but it's just a little part of Microsoft,"

Nonetheless, GeCAD had good software products in RAV Antivirus (the romanian antivirus) but it was never as consumer-friendly or effective as it needs to be. SHould have left it as RAV- those of us using it as a linux mail server would have been happier.

-M

surprise

[varmint jerky]

Here's what happens when you give those guys "freedom to innovate"

This was exactly my idea.

[someone1234]

Sometimes they don't steal the idea, they steal the code : anyone remembers Stacker?

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[Gr8Apes]

Sometimes they don't steal the idea, they steal the code : anyone remembers Stacker? It wasn't just Stacker. SPC QDOS (they sold it then bought it, so they sold something they didn't own.) There's also the Spyglass incident.

And we can't overlook the Sybase SQL code that became the basis for SQL Server, although that was done under a negotiated license... which sounds familiarly like Spyglass.

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[dthable]

It wasn't stealing. Sybase worked with Microsoft to develop large portions of the database and TSQL. The idea was for SQL Server to be an entry level platform and Sybase to go up against Oracle. Moving from Sybase to SQL Server was quite painless.

It's just like OS/2. Microsoft and IBM jointly developed OS/2. That's why Windows NT contained some key features from OS/2.

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[tb3]

And QuickTime. Apple developed the video playback software, containers, codecs, the whole shootin' match. Microsoft stole great chunks of the code, and later got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. That's part of the reason for the contra-deals between Apple and Microsoft in the 1990's.

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[toadlife]

Most large software companies do this. Cisco and Oracle come to mind as companies that buy instead of develop new product lines all the time.

I wonder why people see this a such a bad thing. Reinventing the wheel is viewed as a anti-pattern in the programming world, but when a large company chooses to not do it through acquisitions, it's viewed as a bad thing.

BTW, I was never able to find Duvel locally. :(

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[Gr8Apes]

Note that I did not state that MS stole Sybase's code, mainly because I recall some vague unpleasantness about the split up wherein MS legally but underhandedly took advantage of Sybase. Then again, that's pretty much what they did with IBM too. Took DDE and made it the basis for OLE which is a big part of the reason Windows "won". Think about this: had IBM said "no, we won't share that patent" what would have happend when OS/2 w/ (D)SOM came out and was able to do all this nifty functionality that didn't exist on Windows?

What ifs.... so many what ifs.

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[Gr8Apes]

I wonder why people see this a such a bad thing. Reinventing the wheel is viewed as a anti-pattern in the programming world, but when a large company chooses to not do it through acquisitions, it's viewed as a bad thing. Probably because when the MS monopoly gets a hold of it, the product is usually doomed. They don't acquire things to add features, they acquire things to dominate a market niche. Look at IE - they dominated and disbanded the team until someone else came along (Firefox) and kicked IE's worthless butt.

As for Duvel, sorry to hear that. Maybe there's an online shippable solution for you?

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

People sell things they don't own all the time.
Just look at ISPs.

Re:This was exactly my idea.

[toadlife]

Thanks. Luckily my state is on the allow list for import of booze. I'll be ordering some later tonight.

Not Exchange : OUTLOOK

[whackco]

It isn't Exchange it is having an issue with. Anyone putting Onecare on their Exchange server should be shot. It is the older versions of Outlook that are crapping out. Anything before Outlook 2003 can have 'issues'.

And that sums up their problems.

[Stumbles]

To quote " Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products... "

So much for Microsoft's mantra of innovation. How can you possibly be innovative when all you do is buy up existing technologies and try to bolt them onto a POS of an operating system? Don't answer because that is a rhetorical question.

Re:And that sums up their problems.

[Deideldorfer]

Well I haven't heard of anyone else using the innovative business model you describe ...

Re:And that sums up their problems.

[dthable]

The startup companies use the innovative business model. After going through the growing pains and figuring out how to use those great ideas, a large company comes in and buys them. The founders and owners are more than happy to sell the company and walk away millionaires.

Then the system resets and starts over again. Isn't capitalism wonderful?

don't worry...

[nanosquid]

OneCare will soon be replaced by Microsoft Care 2.0, and it will be slightly less buggy and twice as expensive.

Re:don't worry...

[Volante3192]

And four times as processor intensive.

Re:don't worry...

[suv4x4]

OneCare will soon be replaced by Microsoft Care 2.0, and it will be slightly less buggy and twice as expensive.

Microsoft... TwoCare?

Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products ...

[ubrgeek]

They develop "undocumented features" :)

Re:Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products ...

[Master of Transhuman]

Microsoft's new slogans:

Microsoft - we innovate bugs faster than anyone.

Microsoft - we innovate bloat.

Microsoft - we innovate computer insecurity. Beat that, Linux!

Inquiring minds want to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products.

So, who on Earth picked your OS vendor, and what did you do to them? Obviously everyone else at MS is too scared to make suggestions for finding a new one.

Free beta testers

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Companies roll it out before it's finished, or tested completely That's what consumers are for. :-()

Re:Free beta testers

[sumdumass]

People have claimed that Windows is usualy released in a beta form compared to product standard held by most software companies. And the time between the release and the first service pack is massive beta trial/test. It appears to have worked on almost everything except this time where the product is crucial to get it right the first time.

If this has any truth to it at all, It could explain the problems with this.

Re:Free beta testers

[HomelessInLaJolla]

There's no official policy to release beta software. Only coincidence is involved when deadlines are rushed in order to be first to market with a product. The second product might as well be the ninety-fifth product as far as most consumers are concerned. Many people have enough trouble learning one system and have no inclination to purchase a second box full of a different type of BSOD.

Re:Fool me once

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.

Their new Seuse line

[jd]

OneCare 2.0 Care, RedCare, BlueCare.

Re:Their new Seuse line

[WaZiX]

Don't Care?

Re:Fool me once

[pandrijeczko]

you can't get fooled again.

Especially if you're Roger Daltrey.

Gee - we didn't see this coming, did we?

[GuyverDH]

I think scores of us pointed out the fact that since MS can't be trusted to write a secure operating system, that we couldn't trust them to write software to secure and protect said defective product.

ZDNet Editorial: "The slow poison of OneCase"

[Keeloid]

If you thought the original story was embarrassing, check out the editorial on OneCare http://opinion.zdnet.co.uk/leader/0,1000002208,392 86364,00.htm

Re:ZDNet Editorial: "The slow poison of OneCase"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is sad on so many levels but here is the comment that saddened me most (FTA):

For if the company doesn't care about its customers in one area, it cannot be expected to do so in any area. If the company cannot operate with trust and responsibility then ultimately it cannot survive.

They are living in a dream world for that is exactly how Microsoft has acted since they began, they have made obscene amounts of money doing it and I don't see them not surviving anytime soon.

Correction: Former Microsoft product manager...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, what kind of an idiot do you have to be to say something like this if you work for the company?

They have innovated mobile and tablet pc.

[MMInterface]

There's also the tablet pc API, hand writing recognition, Sideshow, Jolt Ink etc and some of this was home grown. MS has made a lot of innovations when it comes to mobile pc, UMPC, tablet etc. Its silly for someone to say they lack innovation when they don't even kow about this stuff.

MS Doesn't Develop Products?

[cmacb]

Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products.

And all this time I thought Bill and Steve chanted "innovate" a few dozen times and new products just sprang into existence!

Re:MS Doesn't Develop Products?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have the spell all wrong, it's "developers, developers, developers, developers".

Not an antivirus, a disease

[bigblackcar]

From the Article:

But the latest and most serious problems arose in March this year after the product mistakenly quarantined and even deleted Outlook and Outlook Express files for the second time. More than like an antivirus, it seems that OneCare behaves like an autoimmune disease.

"One Care" is about caring for #1

[swschrad]

and at MS, we know, we KNOW, who that is.

it ain't the folks waving checks at the register....

The Foot Book...

[R2.0]

Best.Seuss.Book.Ever.

Working fine

[orclevegam]

While Exchange 2007 doesn't cause issues, users with older versions may see their email quarantined as a matter of course.

Sounds like it's working just fine to me. If anything is wrong, it's that the Exchange 2007 e-mails arn't being quarantined as a matter of course as well.

Oh wait, I get it now, they're mad because it's hurting MS Anti-Virus sells by quarantining the latest batch of exchange worms before they get a chance to make the rounds.

iTunes a significant innovation??

[renoX]

No, it was just a decent implementation of a music player/manager not really a significant innovation.

Re:iTunes a significant innovation??

[dgatwood]

I'm pretty sure it was the first such player with an integrated music store.. It was definitely the first one that offered tight integration with a music store and a portable device. What you mean is that it wasn't particularly innovative on day one, thus proving the original point---that the innovation comes not from the purchase, but rather from what you do with it afterwards.

Re:iTunes a significant innovation??

[renoX]

Interesting. Not having an iPod and not using the integrated music store, of course I didn't feel that iTunes was innovative..

For me those bundled features are just bloat as I don't use them, for those who use them, I guess that the bundling is innovative, but I still wouldn't call it 'significantly' innovative though, more like a minor innovation.

Re:Fool me once

[Master of Transhuman]

You can't fool everybody all the time - but you can fool the thirty percent who still support me all the time!

Same with Bill - the fact that there's no shortage of Windows shills here on /. proves it!

More brilliant ideas on security from Microsoft

[Master of Transhuman]

Microsoft security guru wants Vista bugs rated less serious

Any more questions?

Re:More brilliant ideas on security from Microsoft

[dcam]

This makes a mockery of their "new" stance on security.

Understatement

[triso]

"Microsoft is not a security company. Security is important, but it's just a little part of Microsoft," said Edelmann. Now there's an understatement.

A Little Too Candid

[triso]

By Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Mr. Arno Edelmann, Microsoft's European business security product manager, will be separated from his career with Microsoft Europe.

The Microsoft Tap Dance

[Anonymous Coward]

MICROSOFT: What do you mean we don't innovate? At Microsoft we are all about innovation, innovation, innovation. Hell, we innovated our way onto all of your desktops, didn't we?

USERS: Hey Microsoft, there's a serious problem with one of your products.

MICROSOFT: Products? What products? We don't create products. We just buy them! Silly rabbit. If you really have a problem with something (anything), go talk to the innovators. We're just the messenger.

Mr. Obvious is knocking"

[bryan1945]

'Usually Microsoft doesn't develop products, we buy products."

Or steal, whatever. Nice breath of fresh air, though.

Re:Interesting about Outlook 2007 being ok...

[Douglas Goodall]

Once again, a reason to upgrade to Microsoft's new Office Suite. Bah Humbug.

Make it Open Source?!

[Jimbitz]

Shouldn't Microsoft make it available open source?..
Available for free..
it's for their buggy operating system anyway..