Microsoft Eats Crow to Protect Users
John Hogan,
Yahoo! News,
Aug 25, 2003
Even I feel something for Microsoft these days. As the article says, "the Lovsan, Sobig-F and Nachi worms that spread like wildfire this week showed that the hole left open in the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol of Windows was big enough to drive a truckload of worms through." More importantly, the attacks have been devastating, bringing numerous enterprises (not to mention my own in-box, which is getting more than 1,000 SoBigs a day) to their knees. So much so that even Microsoft bailed and deployed a Linux system to handle requests for its web pages. It is, ironically, a good start - I think that Microsoft could build a masterful Linux distribution and make good money doing it. If Microsoft could somehow make the transition from selling proprietary software to adding value to freeware, it could carve an outstanding business from what is today still a niche market. This is what IBM is trying to do, but it doesn't have the strength to muscle into the desktop. My lesson for Microsoft for this year: change the mantra from "own" to "serve" and you will have a much more secure future - as, for that matter, will the rest of us.
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