Good as well as bad news for Microsoft on the legal front. Their good news is that a judge has rejected Go Computing's claim that Microsoft used dirty tricks to keep it out of the operating system market. However, their bad news is that an EU committee ruled on Monday that Microsoft failed to comply with a landmark antitrust decision, paving the way for fines of up to 2 million euros a day, a source familiar with the situation said.
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Member since:2005-11-11
//What is microsoft doing for security in their own operating systems? No I'm not talking about tools, tools the EU want to stop; I'm talking about general security in the OS, do you believe the biggest software company in the world wouldn't be able to built a high security OS for customers? //
It is not as simple as that.
It turns out I do believe that the biggest software company in the world isn't able to build a high security OS for customers that at the same time is fully backwards compatible at a binary API level with x86 binary-only applications that those customers already own and want to continue to use.
If Microsoft want to release a new OS that doesn't preclude customers from running all their old (binary only) applications, then yes Microsoft cannot make that new OS secure at the same time.
One or the other. Backwards compatible, or secure. Not both at the same time - I believe it can't be done.
So the question boils down to this: would you buy a new Windows OS (or a new PC with a new Windows OS) that was secure but which wouldn't run the other software you already had ... or would you buy buy a new Windows OS (or a new PC with a new Windows OS) that would run most of the other software you already had but which wasn't secure against viruses, worms and rootkits?
It seems to me you are stuffed either way.
Edited 2006-07-04 12:52
Member since:
2006-06-01
I'm very happy to see that.
The EU is the only instance that does something against microsoft.
so you could say, "see apple! iLive, etc., everything is included". But take a closer look.
What is microsoft doing for security in their own operating systems? No I'm not talking about tools, tools the EU want to stop; I'm talking about general security in the OS, do you believe the biggest software company in the world wouldn't be able to built a high security OS for customers?
So it's right that the EU does something to MS, it's the bill for that.