Microsoft was truly innovative in their initial negotiations with IBM for supplying a PC operating system, and subsequent product marketing strategy that is still going full steam ahead today.
The Microsoft marketing machine stands out as a truly innovative idea. Commodity hardware pricing is an outstanding example of the unrelenting marketing machine. Few could afford computers without it, and the Open Source community would hardly exist.
Another innovative win for the Microsoft marketing machine is elevating Bill Gates to a technology shaman who emerges from his yearly week of deep-think pontificating visions of the Next Big Thing. The press falls all over itself scrambling to get the holy words out to the unwashed masses. Unfortunately, I think there's little correlation between the yearly stream of pontifications and reality. The show continues and the press continues its job of giving relevance to the annual pageant.
Another innovative win for Microsoft is dressing up troubled operating systems with more eye candy. 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. Untold billions of dollars are consumed trying to keep defective systems limping along and patching the latest security breaches.
Unfortunately I think the innovative streak for Microsoft marketing will continue unabated. They have a formidable task of ushering in the Vista era.
Calling software defects "bugs" denotes that somehow critters are crawling into code and having their way with the bits. Once upon a time, there were real bugs in computers. They prevented relay contacts from closing. There's no such thing as software "bugs" today, only logic defects.
In reality, defects are created by people with imperfect logic. Calling defects "bugs" is transferring responsibility from the human creator to a mythical insect.
Defective software is a fact of life. Unlike Star Trek Vulcan science officers, humans lack pure logic. Maybe that's the price we're paying for being human.
Until space aliens possessing pure logic visit Earth and mind-meld with humans, we're doomed to imperfect logic. This means microcode cast in silicon, assemblers, compilers, and program generators will continue delivering defective output. To compound the problem, it also means that application solutions humans are abstracting and describing using these tools will continue containing logic defects.
If you think defects are rampant today, you ain't seen nothing yet. The order of complexity of software-based systems is most likely accelerating at a rate faster than Moore's law.
The best we imperfect logic humans can do is learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, this seems to be rarely practiced. Many realities about the art of software were described by Fredrick Brooks in "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering." The second edition of the book published 20 years later confirms that the realities of software are as true today as in 1975 when the first edition of the book was published.
A precious few people practicing the art of software are aware of software sins of the past. Most practitioners are blindly recreating them, and are pushing the blame onto the mythical "bug."
Yea, right, sure, Mr. Bill. Sending coders off to security 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 buzz words and maybe even understanding a couple new concepts. No one comes back cleansed of old habits. I'm reminded of the limerick the you can train a dog but you can't make it think.
I think the problem you're facing is systemic, Mr. Bill. Detecting and eradicating security defects in your products is impossible. If it could be done, at best the effort such a feat would most likely cost many times that of developing and testing the products in the first place. Automated tools will help pick off the low hanging fruit, but won't get at the really nasty pathological connections. You seem to have made your choices early on Mr. Bill. There's no practical way to rectify them, except starting from scratch.
Even starting from scratch won't fix the problem, Mr. Bill. The real culprit seems to be the corporate culture you've created. Getting a culture's head straight is a very difficult, if not impossible.
Unfortunately Mr. Bill, the fundamental problem you're facing isn't an engineering one, but a human one. You may be powerless in solving it.
Thank you Judge J. Frederick Motz for restoring a glimmer of sanity back into our collective culture conscience.
Microsoft's newest software products may be so bloated, so loading or running them effectively on the outdated computers that were apart of the proposed settlement, may be impossible.
Without your decision, Microsoft may be dumping old software products, worts and all, into our poorest school systems for use on the outdated computers .
The recipients of Microsoft's generosity may well have found out the cost of Microsoft's gifts may be more than they could afford.
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Microsoft was truly innovative in their initial negotiations with IBM for supplying a PC operating system, and subsequent product marketing strategy that is still going full steam ahead today.
The Microsoft marketing machine stands out as a truly innovative idea. Commodity hardware pricing is an outstanding example of the unrelenting marketing machine. Few could afford computers without it, and the Open Source community would hardly exist.
Another innovative win for the Microsoft marketing machine is elevating Bill Gates to a technology shaman who emerges from his yearly week of deep-think pontificating visions of the Next Big Thing. The press falls all over itself scrambling to get the holy words out to the unwashed masses. Unfortunately, I think there's little correlation between the yearly stream of pontifications and reality. The show continues and the press continues its job of giving relevance to the annual pageant.
Another innovative win for Microsoft is dressing up troubled operating systems with more eye candy. 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. Untold billions of dollars are consumed trying to keep defective systems limping along and patching the latest security breaches.
Unfortunately I think the innovative streak for Microsoft marketing will continue unabated. They have a formidable task of ushering in the Vista era.
Calling software defects "bugs" denotes that somehow critters are crawling into code and having their way with the bits. Once upon a time, there were real bugs in computers. They prevented relay contacts from closing. There's no such thing as software "bugs" today, only logic defects.
In reality, defects are created by people with imperfect logic. Calling defects "bugs" is transferring responsibility from the human creator to a mythical insect.
Defective software is a fact of life. Unlike Star Trek Vulcan science officers, humans lack pure logic. Maybe that's the price we're paying for being human.
Until space aliens possessing pure logic visit Earth and mind-meld with humans, we're doomed to imperfect logic. This means microcode cast in silicon, assemblers, compilers, and program generators will continue delivering defective output. To compound the problem, it also means that application solutions humans are abstracting and describing using these tools will continue containing logic defects.
If you think defects are rampant today, you ain't seen nothing yet. The order of complexity of software-based systems is most likely accelerating at a rate faster than Moore's law.
The best we imperfect logic humans can do is learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, this seems to be rarely practiced. Many realities about the art of software were described by Fredrick Brooks in "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering." The second edition of the book published 20 years later confirms that the realities of software are as true today as in 1975 when the first edition of the book was published.
A precious few people practicing the art of software are aware of software sins of the past. Most practitioners are blindly recreating them, and are pushing the blame onto the mythical "bug."
Anyone sent off to training comes back knowing some new buzz words and maybe even understanding a couple new concepts. No one comes back cleansed of old habits. I'm reminded of the limerick the you can train a dog but you can't make it think.
I think the problem you're facing is systemic, Mr. Bill. Detecting and eradicating security defects in your products is impossible. If it could be done, at best the effort such a feat would most likely cost many times that of developing and testing the products in the first place. Automated tools will help pick off the low hanging fruit, but won't get at the really nasty pathological connections. You seem to have made your choices early on Mr. Bill. There's no practical way to rectify them, except starting from scratch.
Even starting from scratch won't fix the problem, Mr. Bill. The real culprit seems to be the corporate culture you've created. Getting a culture's head straight is a very difficult, if not impossible.
Unfortunately Mr. Bill, the fundamental problem you're facing isn't an engineering one, but a human one. You may be powerless in solving it.
Thank you Judge J. Frederick Motz for restoring a glimmer of sanity back into our collective culture conscience. Microsoft's newest software products may be so bloated, so loading or running them effectively on the outdated computers that were apart of the proposed settlement, may be impossible. Without your decision, Microsoft may be dumping old software products, worts and all, into our poorest school systems for use on the outdated computers . The recipients of Microsoft's generosity may well have found out the cost of Microsoft's gifts may be more than they could afford.