Microsoft needs help by the community now? Well, for how long? Isn't paying for their products support enough? Over the years, we have collectively paid them enough to hire the best of the world's best coders, the best of world's best QA people, and the best of the best software developement management. And then another 10 of the same.

When I buy something - a car, a HiFi system a cellphone etc. - I choose a specific brand because even though it may cost a bit more than other available products, I'm ready to accept this for the fact that the extra cost has in part been used to develop and test the product better. You are in fact right to expect your purchase to work flawlessly, whatever the product is - except for software. Why is this an accepted situation? This is especially peculiar as the margins in software business are much larger than in, say, car industry, and there are no running costs for improving the product. If, say, Toyota finds that a part that usually fails after 200000 kilometres would only fail after 600000 kilometres if a superior alloy was used and decides to do so for its customers benefit, Toyota will have to bear the extra cost for every vehicle they produce. With software, it's just a matter of the initial investment in development and testing - afterwards you can distribute the software without any additional cost whatsoever.

I think the only appropriate action would be to vote with our wallets: drop Microsoft. Find a way to do what you need with a different software, and don't buy Microsoft any more. By not paying for a software product, your security will increase, which is a weird situation, but one we've been accepting for years past.

[ reply ]

Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/377/32888#32888