S teve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, has security on his thoughts, and he spoke his mind at a conference yesterday in Orlando, FL. C|Net has posted an article, Ballmer: Raising Microsoftis security game , which details Mr. Ballmeris remarks during that conference on issues of software quality, security, and customer satisfaction.
Mr. Ballmer freely admits that Microsoft has a lot a work to do, according to the article, but believes Microsoft is making progress. He also makes many comparisons between the assumed quality of Linux versus Windows. From the article:
Ballmer, speaking here at an industry conference market research firm Gartner sponsored, acknowledged that the software maker has been late to introduce better ways for its customers to patch their systems but said Microsoft is now making strides. "I know we need to do better, but we are in this challenging position where the hacker only needs to find one vulnerability, and we need to keep them out," he said. "We have put a lot of energy into patching, later than we should have," he said. "We have been raising our game."
[...]
The Microsoft chief executive also contrasted the quality of software thatis produced by commercial makers to that of software thatis developed under the open-source model. "Should there be a reason to believe that code that comes from a variety of people around the world would be higher-quality than from people who do it professionally? Why is its pedigree better than code done in a controlled fashion? I donit get that," he said.
"There is no road map for Linux, nobody who has his rear end on the line. We think itis an advantage a commercial company can bring--we provide a road map, indemnify customers. They know where to send e-mail. None of that is true in the other world. So far, I think our model works pretty well," Ballmer said.
[...]
Ballmer said the market for Linux on client systems is still small. "Itis smaller than the market for the Mac. The Mac is a nice, small business for Microsoft. But it is a small business. If someone says you have an opportunity to support a new platform thatis less popular than the Mac, Iim not sure that is a good starting point," he said.
The full article is an interesting read.