[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“I’ll be approaching this particular event from a “what”
standpoint. Essentially, what this means to Microsoft from a
PR/marketing and business standpoint….”
“The negative aspect of this crack is even worse for their
marketing due to the focus their marketing messages have expressed.
For example, “we eat our own dog food.” This claim has been
severely damaged not only by Microsoft’s inability to keep this
crack from occurring in the first place, but also by not noticing
that the crack occurred whenever it did. This point raises
questions as to the quality of Microsoft’s products. If they fail
in such a critically spectacular way for the very company that
created them. why should a corporation trust their own systems to
these very products?”
“With Linux, the administrator can view the source code. Linux
proponents claim that because of this security, holes can be found
and eliminated as they occur. On the other hand, Microsoft has
claimed that holes in their OS are less likely to be found due to
the inability of hackers to view the source code. This claim, of
course, is no longer true. In fact, the reality is much, much
worse. As it now stands, two groups now have access to the source
code: the bad guys and Microsoft. Here, the Microsoft marketing
trust card fails on the broadest level. Microsoft is asking us to,
“trust our ability to provide security,” right after they’ve been
robbed.“