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Microsoft is screwing their customers, again! |
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 If someone were to ask you, a Mac advocate, what the #1 problem with windows is, what would your answer be? My answer, and I imagine most of our answers to that question would be the viruses and spyware that have literally plagued windows for years. How do these viruses/spyware spread themselves? They do it through holes in the code of windows. Code that Microsoft is directly responsible for.
Patching this code to stop these viruses has become big business. For example a single company, McAfee, has recently reported a $236 million revenue in the first quarter of this year. That's just 1 quarter, only 3 months and only a single company.
So basically Microsoft releases buggy, unsecured code and these companies are making billions of dollars a year selling software that patches Microsoft's code to help the end user (who paid for the unsecured, buggy code originally) secure their computer and prevent the infection of computer viruses/spyware. Seeing this as an opportunity to make more money, and to not be outdone, Microsoft has announced that they will be releasing a virus protection subscription service called Windows OneCare Live.
I'm sure you have pretty much guessed that this will probably be part of future windows releases when it goes "live" next year, just in time for Longhorn. (O.K., it'll come out months before longhorn, but you get my drift.) So when millions of computer n00bs get their shiny new computer that looks like a cow they'll get a prompt to enter credit card information for virus protection and think that they have no other choice.
Now, it is unclear what Microsoft plans to charge for this "service", but no matter what it costs it is very clear that this is a substantial conflict of interest. What motivation is Microsoft going to have to release secure code? What is going to stop Microsoft from releasing code intentionally vulnerable to attack from viruses, just to push subscriptions of this service? Is Microsoft going to release security updates that fix these loop holes, or only provide them to the group of Windows users who subscribe?
In my opinion, you should not pay a company for a computer program that is full of security holes in it's code, only to give the same company more money to fix the holes that they left there in the first place! It's like Chevrolet selling a truck that didn't have door locks, charging full price mind you. Then charging it's customers to install locks to thwart the growing number of Chevrolet trucks being broken in to. (Is it even breaking in at that point?)
When will these sheep, er I mean people see the alternatives to Windows, and Microsoft? When will people realize they don't have to put up with viruses and spyware? Why do people still pay Microsoft their hard earned money for code that has been proven time and time again to be unsecured?
I'm not saying the Mac is perfect, all computer programs have an inherent flaw; they were designed by humans, and humans make mistakes. All I am saying is that one one side you have a company releasing crappy code, and charging you to fix it, and on the other side you have a operating system that is powerful, and easy to use and has no known viruses. Which choice seems smarter? |
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May 14 2005, 11:51 AM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| jstoup |
5/14/05, 12:07 PM EDT |
I agree whole heartedly.
But what I want to know is how can MS's PR guy get up and say all of this stuff with a straight face?
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| Chriscja |
5/15/05, 5:05 AM EDT |
Great Article :)I agree with everything you said
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| DJ-LC |
5/15/05, 10:13 AM EDT |
I hate to say this - but there is one way Microsoft could have more security and a better OS: get better copy machines.
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| Shahid |
5/15/05, 10:31 AM EDT |
I know someone who works near Silicon Valley, and he said that Microsoft owns small groups that are paid to make viruses from the code that MS provides for them. Explains a lot. Of course, there code is probably really easy to crack.
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| matty |
5/15/05, 5:52 PM EDT |
Apple have sold themselves short for this new market strategy. If they could just write some [doodoo]tier code they could start blackmailing us into getting a computer that works and is secure.
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| dab2 |
5/16/05, 9:21 AM EDT |
Your Chevy analogy is close to the button, but imagine if Chevrolet didn't sell you the locks but instead leased them to you; that is what Microsquish is really up to.
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| iKen |
5/16/05, 9:31 AM EDT |
oh, good point dab2... I wish I would have thought of that originally. :)
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| rlhamon |
5/16/05, 1:53 PM EDT |
I think that more people are realizing that there is a alternative. It's the people who think that they are getting off cheaper by having a 13 yr old neighbor building a computer for them and for those people I hope that they suffer a pay the top dollar that Microsoft is charging.
I really do see a change people are giving Apple a second look and actually acting by purchasing one. The Mac Mini seems to be that computer that they are looking at purchasing.
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| HTML Samurai |
5/17/05, 3:56 PM EDT |
Great article, dude!
Ya know, we had an old Chevy when I was a kid, it had rust holes all over it, but it would start for the first time in a year in the dead of winter - the locks worked, too. I'd trade a Windoze box for it any day of the week. ;-)
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| tomasko |
5/18/05, 10:26 AM EDT |
Gret article!, I think you have a great website. I use windows, and that's just because I learned to use this, and now it's too hard to learn to use linux all on my own (I want to keep my PC, as it's fairly new). Especially when everyone keeps sayng "use windows, it is what everyone uses, it can't be so bad..." the usual crap... I've just bought an iPod and found this website, and the idea of buying a computer which is made by the same people who make your OS and programs, which has no viruses and spyware, AND looks great (i.e. a mac) is more and more temptating.
But the macs are much more expensive to a similarly powered computer...
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| iKen |
5/18/05, 11:42 AM EDT |
Tomasko: thanks for the compliments. Take a good look at the mac mini. The computer hardware/software you get for $500 is unmatched in the wintel world. Trust me, I know from experience. Or don't trust me, and do some google searches for reviews. Or better yet, go to an Apple store, and test the Mac mini.
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5/26/05, 10:56 AM EDT |
I used MACs from the very beginning. Somebody remember the MAC II? That was the time when the system, the programs and your data were all at a one single 400k 3 1/2" floppy disk... and you booted from that same disk everytime. Ah, those times. My instructors were always fascinated with the reports I handed them, with those neat graphics and everything. That was the time of DOS. Then came win 3.1 (a crap bad copy of Mac's os) and win 95. Then I needed a computer, and Santa came with a windows based pc. Holy shhh. I learned how to use 95, and now I am dual booting with 98 and using that crapy xp.
Having used both systems, I can surelly say that Macs beats win for much. Macs are trusty, easier to use and have lots more lesssss problems. I have to live with a lot of blue screens, lots of hanging, and lots of uncertainty of using internet. This very month, I got a troyan, and everything I had was almost lost. I had my computer nicely put and running smoothly, and then this. I had to buy another hard disk to backup my data and format the old one. AND then install everything AGAIN, and put it as it was before. Two weeks wasted. GRRRRRR...
Hey, those who still have windows based pc's, think about this: if you have a PC with, let's say, a processor running at 1.5 GHz with about 512K of RAM, and compare it with a Mac with those same attributes, the Mac will badly beat that pc. Try to open some big photos (5Mb size each) at the same time. The PC will cry for help, while the Mac will be asking for more... and still you can hear some good music at the same time while you are working with the photos... in that very same Mac... Cool huh? And comparing with price, you have to update your win based pc at least once a year, while with Macs you don't badly have to. You can still use your old G3 and don't have too many problems with new software. But try to run win xp with your pentium III running at 300kHz. You will be sorry for that and very eager to hit your pc with a bat...
So you will spend more money with your win based pc, not only on hardware, but in software to protect it, time lost when a virus gets its payload and all that valuable data that can be potentially lost, and headaches when something don't run on your pc and have to upgrade... the neverending story.
I'm really sad that Santa won't bring me a Mac, because he uses a laptop with win xp on it... Buhuuuu!!!!!!
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