Flaw finders to software makers: It's payback time

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If no alternative operating systems...

... had existed, a severe problem with Windows could cause them to come into existence.

Microsoft was lucky about security.

The company had not emphasized the problem sufficiently, as shown by its admitted inability to fix some of the vulnerabilites in the W95 kernel series.

Then, when security did become a significant issue, Microsoft had XP, which could be improved, if at some cost to the company's other projects.

The improvement in security was so significant and the issue had become so prominent, that Microsoft was able to use security as a reason to upgrade. More sales.

So the result was that Microsoft lost no ground and in fact gained revenues from security vulnerability.


If Microsoft had failed, customers would have sought out alternatives. That an alternative was a possibility didn't matter as long as Microsoft could keep its customers.

So you have a good point about security problems, but Microsoft was responding to a far bigger threat to revenues than only the existence of an alternative in the marketplace.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 08/18/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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