Forget California, It’s Time to Recall Microsoft

Code Red, Love Bug, Slammer, Nimda, Pretty Park, BubbleBoy, Melissa, Code Red II, MSBlaster, and numerous other high-profile Microsoft-sponsored incidents…many view them as “the price of doing business in the Information Age” and cheerfully spend (or lose) increasing amounts of money with each new incident arising from poorly designed software. But rather than face reality by conducting a dollars-and-sense risk assessment of their IT operation to see how much Microsoft’s vulnerabilities cost their enterprise annually, these sheeple – at all levels of government, industry, and society — prefer tolerating mediocrity to efficiency and reliability in their software assets, because they’re either too lazy to investigate alternatives or don’t want to propose changes to the comfortable status quo.

What recourse do you have in such cases? You can’t just sue the software vendor for problems with their product like you can the maker of a vehicle or appliance since you’ve given up those rights by using the product under the terms of its license agreement. The only option you have is continue using the software in question and scrambling to update your systems whenever a new problem presents a danger to your information assets. In other words, when Microsoft says “patch” you salute and say “how soon?”

Or, you can vote with your pocketbook and move to an alternative software product that works better, costs less to buy and maintain, and won’t burn out your network support staff. Nobody’s saying you must use any one particular product or operating system, and they all tend to perform the same basic functions needed in today’s working society – although some are better at it than others. It may take a little bit of effort to switch and get used to the new product, but the long-term payoff will be worth it. [Richard Forno – Infowarrior]

Me? I’m just glad I use a Mac.

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