The December CTP of Windows Vista has been released. ActiveWin has published screenshots, and a list of features, of the latest CTP of Windows Vista. Key areas of improvement in this CTP are security (Windows Defender, parental control, enhanced firewall, control over installation of device drivers, and more), performance, power state transitions, and the user interface ("evidence of Aero's progress in the December CTP includes the translucent 'glass' appearance of open windows, smoother transitions between windows and a re-designed start menu").
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Member since:2005-07-14
I'm not sure what grand-parent is exactly saying, but I know one thing. Monopoly is bad, if you are the buyer. As a buyer, you want choice. That is the reason, why we have anti-monopoly state offices in most countries.
The problem with monopoly is, that once a company achieves it in a market segment, it has no more motivation to inovate plus it has an easy way to get more money (read "raise prices") from existing customers. So in the end, you would be getting less product for money.
For this reason, there is a law in most countries, which prohibits making use of monopoly in one market segment (operating systems in this case) to achieve monopoly in a different market segment (applications software, media playing software, anti-everything-bad software). The law would not prohibit Microsoft to create their own anti-everything-bad software and sell it as a separate product - box, manuals, and most importantly a price-tag.
The point I'm trying to make is - if Microsoft creates their own anti-everything sw (they actually are already doing it, if I understand the situation correctly) AND (this is important) bundles it with the OS for free, then all the other producers (Symantes, F-Prot, AVG, Kerio, etc...) will have NO paying customers left. Not because Microsoft's product was technically better, but because it came with the OS, and for "free"*. And _THAT_ would suck. After they are all out of this market segment, Microsoft will slow down the development of the product rapidly.
You can see that with Windows, you can see that with IE. IE won over Netscape, because it was arguably technically better plus bundled. IE 4.0 was much better then IE 3.0. The changes to 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 were not that big. After 6.0, IE was not developed for a long time**. I argue that since they reached monopoly status with internet browsers, the development of their product almost stopped.
Back to Windows. In the times of DOS and the 80286, 80386, there was competition (DR-DOS, Amiga computers, Apple had a bigger share). MS-DOS to Windows 3.1 was a huge change for me. Windows 95 still had competition (OS/2) and 3.11 -> 95 was a huge change as well. 95 -> 98 was a little change. NT 4.0 was somewhere in between 95 and 98, from my point of view. NT 4.0 -> 2000 was a bigger change than 95 -> 98, but not as big like 3.11 -> 95. 2000 -> XP was a marginal change, smaller than 95 -> 98***. I argue that since they reached monopoly status with internet browsers, the development of their product almost stopped.
I can see a similar development for the anti-virus and anti-spyware software market segment. Therefore it is my opinion, that a shortsighted thing would be to let the users have better security when Vista is released and only one supplier of such software 3 years after that release.
OTOH, I believe that Microsoft should secure their OS. They should do it on the kernel level - a) that's the correct place to do it, b) it won't push any 3rd-parties out of the software market.
Cue in the compulsory car analogy. You have car. You need to buy tires for it. Tires are produced by a different company than your car. There are even numerous companies producing tires that could be used with your car (and with different cars, but that does not matter now). If you buy a car, it comes with tires. Later, you need to buy winter tires. You go out and buy some. Now, would you go out and buy winter tires, for cold hard cash, if your car producer would change your tires twice a year for free? For as long as you drive the car. Drive to a service point, leave with new tires. I guess not. That still would not be bad, if they were buying the tires from a different company. The tires-producing companies could still compete on who will supply tires to the car-producing company. However, what if the car-producing company decided to make tires for themselves? Then all other tire-producing companies would be out of the market, instantly and you, as a customer, would be left with no choice.
As an extra fear, imagine there was just one car producing company and they would produce only three types of cars - personal, small truck, big truck. 
On a side note, there used to be a time where the line between the OS (kernel + basic tools) and application software was clear. As well as the difference between OS vendors and applications vendors. It got all messed up with Windows 95. Integrated graphics subsystem. Integrated window manager. Later, an integrated internet browser, integrated media player. Now an integrated anti-everything package is waiting behind the corner. So, what should the other software houses produce, when MS is producing almost everything for the desktop?
Side note two: we, as a society do not accept monopoly for clothing, food, cars, electronics, etc. Why do we accept almost-monopolies with our computers?
*Quotation marks, because, as the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
**I never really used IE, so I might be wrong.
***One could argue about this for hours, this is my opinion as a user. I never studied the internals of Windows and frankly, I'm not really interested.
Member since:2005-07-09
MS-DOS also came with MSAV bundled with it. It didn't destroy the AV market by any stretch of the imagination.
"I can see a similar development for the anti-virus and anti-spyware software market segment. Therefore it is my opinion, that a shortsighted thing would be to let the users have better security when Vista is released and only one supplier of such software 3 years after that release."
As for being short sighted, in a perfect world, Microsoft would obsolete/mitigate the need for anti-*. Seeing as that would require a serious rearchitecting of Windows as we know it and the removal of a lot of legacy cruft (then Symantec, McAfee, F-Prot, CA, et al would really be ass out or forced to reinvent themselves), the next best thing for them would be to include anti-*. It should also remain free, fully updated (unlike MSAV), and replaceable.
Microsoft is trying to establish themselves as a reformed, security conscious vendor. IOT to do this, they really have no choice but to integrate. Here is why; Too many of their customers aren't taking it upon themselves install necessary security software on their own. Hell, too many of their customers end up zombified due to not using Automatic Updates, let alone implementing and maintaining security software. We aren't talking about getting clobbered by Windows worms from Day 0 stuff, patches that would have stopped Code Red had been availible for months (one of many examples). Microsoft has been saying "Trustworthy Computing", so they really have a lot of stops to pull out. You can't do that if your name is in the headlines because of yet another worm your software is propagating and computers are zombies before the install is finished or they can reach http://update.microsoft.com upon being connected to the Internet.
For the other ISV's of security software, if they build something better, people will buy it. Windows XP and Server 2003 both come with a firewall, but Zonealarm, Kerio and Linksys are all still in business.
In short, rearchitect, or integrate and correctly implement the bandaids. Anything less makes "Trustworthy Computing" appear to be lip service.
Member since:
2005-06-29
AFAIK competition is enforced in the (long-term) interest of customers.
So... you're saying that users' computers should be insecure NOW, so that Symantec and other can compete with one another? I'm sorry, but that is a very shortsighted view.
Look, Microsoft could make Windows a lot more secure if they were just allowed to bundle proper tools to do so. Yet, you do not want that to happen, because Symantec might get hurt?
Again, I find the user's interest NOW much more important than the user's interest in ten years. Symantec and others have had the chance to secure Windows with their tools for years, and apparantly, they failed to do so (many computers still run without firewall and/or AV). Microsoft gets the blame for that (partially rightfully so, they make Windows after all). Now, the only one that can do something about this is Microsoft, by bundling a decent firewall/AV tools. Yet, you are against that-- I'm suspecting it's only because you want to keep on blaming Microsoft for making Windows an insecure operating system, but NOT let them fix it.