How Microsoft Marketing Screwed Us All.

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  rhorwitz12/24/07 Report as spam
  1

  You have a choice.

  So use another operating system. Look at Linux:
  http://librenix.com/?inode=21

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  dallasmick12/24/07 Report as spam
  2

  True but...

  While everything in this article is true, it does not really tell the whole story. The thesis of this article is that Microsoft left the operating system open as a marketing ploy to sell its own products. If that is true, then why did they leave it open for everyone? To be sure, Microsoft created a market and then dominated it. But the first part of that statement is vastly more important than the second.
  
  How many third party packaged applications were there in 1971? Zero. Why? Because there was no such thing as a third party packaged application in 1971. You either purchased your application from the computer manufacturer (first party IBM) or wrote it yourself.
  
  By removing the distinction between the operating system and the application layers, and leaving the operating system open, Microsoft created the packaged software industry. In 2007 this industry was worth $250 Billion. Thats with a B folks.
  
  (Calculated from statistics at http://www.siia.net/software/pubs/growth_software06.pdf "The worldwide packaged software industry for all platforms was estimated by International Data Corp. at $220 billion in 2005" plus 2006 growth of 7%, compounded by an estimated 2007 6% growth)
  
  How much does this industry pay to Microsoft as a royalty for the use of their technology? Zero. How much for access to the installed base of Windows machines? Zero. Sounds like a funny question today, but in 1971 if you wanted to write an application for a client you had to pay a royalty to IBM to license the operating system if you were to run it on their machines.
  
  When they realized the mistake they had made in the 1980's of running an open software platform (DOS) on the IBM PC (often called the most expensive business mistake ever made), they tried desperately to close it back up with the release of OS/2 (with royalties on protected mode software) and the MCA bus PC (with hardware royalties).
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_System/2
  
  But by that time the cat was out of the bag folks, and the rest of the industry (running open DOS and open Windows) took off, leaving IBM behind.
  
  People often forget that these open principles were a response to the real dictator at the time; IBM and the very systems the author lauds.
  
  I would even venture to argue that the hardware industry itself has been fueled by the vast number of packaged software applications made available by this decision, roughly $500 billion in hardware per year. Software has always driven hardware sales. Think of all those accountants who purchased Apple II's in order to run Visicalc.
  
  http://www.plunkettresearch.com/Industries/InfoTechComputersSoftware/InfoTechComputersSoftwareTrends/tabid/173/Default.aspx "$537 billion for hardware..."
  
  So right now, the annual contribution to the world's economy of the combined packaged software and the hardware markets it fueled is $750 billion. And this contribution has been happening for some 25 years now. Some pretty simple calculations show that the total contribution over 25 years is close to $5.8 Trillion. Thats with a T folks. Microsoft created that market as a counterweight to Big Brother. And gave it to you.
  
  Now put yourself back in that room at Microsoft where this decision was being made and tell me; How would you vote?

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/24/07 Report as spam
  3

  Illogic abounds

  Your arguments are complete nonsense. The technical decision to make the operating system secure has nothing to do with the business decision on how to license applications.
  
  The fact that IBM expected developers to pay a royalty fee (as do Xbox developers today) is irrelevant. Microsoft could easily kept the business concept open (i.e. no charge for application developers, with published APIs) and still had an inviolable operating system.
  
  The advantage that Microsoft got from blurring the distinction between the two was that it allowed their applications to be more intimate with the OS, thereby providing a technical advantage to Microsoft products.
  
  In particular, the idea that the browser should be integral to the operating system was insane, given that the browser has the capability of both running programs introduced from outside and also altering the registry. That's just nuts -- and if Microsoft didn't do it for some marketing reasons then they're just truly wretched programmers and designers.
  
  Which, of course, is a perfectly valid viewpoint.

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  dallasmick12/24/07 Report as spam
  4

  Inviolable Operating Systems

  An "inviolable operating system" by definition is a closed operating system. Microsoft chose an open operating system.
  
  DOS and the Windows operating system are open. That means that anyone, Microsoft included, can take advantage of the interfaces and hooks it provides. IE does nothing that anyone else can do via published APIs.
  
  There is a huge misunderstanding about how viruses propagate. I challenge you to identify a virus that propagates via a published API mechanism. Viruses propagate via unpublished hooks, calls, reverse engineering, buffer overruns, jumps to memory locations that do not belong to them. Thats why they are evil. Blaming Microsoft for a virus is like blaming a cancer victim for their cancer.
  
  If only you were God. You could design a human body that were immune from viruses in a closed system. It would have no mouth where viruses could enter, no eyes that flus could pass into, no ears where mites could nest, no lungs where airborne creatures could invade.
  
  I prefer my open system.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/24/07 Report as spam
  5

  You're completely confused.

  An "inviolable operating system" by definition is a closed operating system. Microsoft chose an open operating system. DOS and the Windows operating system are open.
  
  I'm sorry, but you're exhibiting a fairly comprehensive lack of knowledge about operating system design with these statements.
  
  You need to do some studying on mainframe operating systems, specifically MULTICS (originally designed at MIT), CP-V (built by Xerox based on Dartmouth timesharing) and VMS from Digital. The problems that you think an "open" operating system is going to address were all addressed in the 1970s and 1980s. And there were thousands of applications that ran on them. Many of the application developers were even given source code from the operating system in order to write better programs. But the operating system was still secure.
  
  These operating system implementations proved that you do not need to give programs the ability to alter the operating system in order to write programs that work correctly. With an architectural approach to operating system security, the operating system can behave in an entirely predictable manner, regardless of what an application is doing. It has nothing to do with "open" or "closed."
  
  A secure operating system could be 100% published and in the public domain, with every line of code visible and still be completely secure, because the only way to get into the operating system would be through a password entered at a secure console -- meaning one where a keystroke recorder would not be able to run. (Which, by the way, a secure operating environment would prevent.)
  
  In any case, Microsoft's operating systems aren't open by any reasonable definition of the term. They're completely closed because nobody except Microsoft knows exactly what goes on inside them. In fact, you used to be able break into Internet Server by typing "netscapeprogramersareweenies." The problem is that Microsoft operating systems don't isolate applications from the operating system and let them change operating system parameters.
  
  That's why viruses work. The operating system lets applications alter each other. The browser can execute programs that alter the registry.
  
  As for all the back doors and hacks and hooks, none of that would matter if the basic operating system has been coded so that nothing ANY application did could 1) alter the operating system or 2) alter the operation of another program. That's the problem that was solved 30 years ago and which Microsoft decided to ignore with Windows 2000/XP.

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  jjg2158812/24/07 Report as spam
  6

  Too opinionated

  Decent article if you are writing for a middle school class... In other words, where are the facts? All these stipulations and conclusions are being made on little to no evidence being proven. I'm not saying that the information given is wrong, it's just that it seems to be more opinionated than anything.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/24/07 Report as spam
  7

  It's a blog, dude.

  It ain't a news story.
  
  In any case, I worked in a operating system development group for 12 years and I've discussed this issue in detail with several knowledgeable OS developers, including the guy who inspired The Tao of Programming
  
  So I'm not just some schmuck expressing an opinion. I'm a schmuck who knows about operating systems expressing an opinion.
  
  I'll say it again:
  
  1. There should be no way for ANY application running on a PC to alter ANYTHING in the operating system.
  
  2. There should be no way for ANY application to screw up the operation of ANY other application.
  
  These were technical problems that were solved 30 f**kin' years ago!!
  
  It's stupid and insane that we have to waste billions of dollars fighting off viruses, hacker attacks, and dealing with "blue screens of death." It's completely unnecessary and it's time that somebody pointed out how Microsoft created this unnecessary problem.

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  bellco12/24/07 Report as spam
  8

  RE: How Microsoft Marketing Screwed Us All.

  Wow, when I am not busy, I'll get a Linux Windows emulator...

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  FlyingDude12/24/07 Report as spam
  9

  choice by customers or forced by suppliers?

  I would agreed that we as customers do have choices in choosing applications and/or operating systems. However, I would disagree that the choices given is on a fair ground.

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  xtier12/24/07 Report as spam
  10

  RE: How Microsoft Marketing Screwed Us All.

  Who in the heck allowed you to write this article? Your statements are broad and lack depth. First of all Web sites manipulate Web browsers which are client side applications, through javascript and/or other browser-based technologies to interface through the browsers Document Object Model (DOM) to execute an exploit. Internet Explorer is not the only browser. Exploits exist for FireFox and Safari as well. Save for BSD Unix, many exploits of other types exist for Linux and Unix alike.
  
  Get your facts straight and stop perpetuating ignorance.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/24/07 Report as spam
  11

  The Facts

  If the operating system were coded correctly, no browser would be able to alter the operating system. The fact that any program can alter the registry makes Windows XP insecure. Let me explain:
  
  - There should be no way for a program to change anything in the operating system.
  
  - There should be no way for an application to hang the operating system.
  
  - There should be no way for the operating of one application to alter the behavior of another application.
  
  These problems were solved decades ago. If Microsoft had not decided to ignore them, there would be no viruses, and hacking would be limited to guessing passwords -- because that would be only way to get enough privilege to make alterations in the operating system.
  
  Also, you've made the rather silly assumption of couching the controversy in terms of the tired Linux vs. Windows dialectic. I said nothing about Linux because I frankly have no idea whether the same problems exist in that operating environment. I wasn't writing about Linux; if I had been writing about Linux, I would have typed the word "Linux" somewhere in the blog entry. Cripes, try reading the thing before you jump to conclusions about what I was saying.
  
  What I do know is that several mainframe operating systems coded decades ago (notably MULTICS) had already solved the problems of operating system security. If those design principles had been followed at Microsoft, we would not have problems with viruses because viruses exploit the ability in Windows (and maybe Linux and Leopard for all I know) for applications to alter other applications, including the operating system.

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  xtier12/26/07 Report as spam
  12

  RE

  Your article implies that Microsoft is different from other operating systems through implementation of its business model, via applications and OS. I still say you still lack depth and fact. You have not made your case. You missed my point entirely and your narrowed vision proves my point. Linux and Unix systems also have vulnerabilities; is this so because of marketing? No.
  The thrust of your article implies the sole reason for viruses on Windows XP is due marketing and has led to the way in how Microsoft engineers software. This alone has exposed the platform to viruses. Actually regardless of the way Microsoft has engineered software, viruses would be present; just as there are with Unix and Linux; my point here since you missed it last time, is, any OS is vulnerable to viruses. It is ?silly? for you to think that all the unknowns are known by engineers when they write software. Until every unknown becomes known with respect to producing an OS and or application, there will always be vulnerabilities and the potential thereof. Again, you missed the comparison/contrast I made between these operating systems; but again, pride of authorship, it seems, has blinded.
  I still take you to task on your article.
  Restated, BSD is the only OS that stands out in the OS crowd as an exceptional virus hardened system - subsequently this is the version of Apple chose. What makes this different is extensive security auditing regardless of marketing. Even so, with all the effort in hardening, OS X has a virus in the wild. Is this because Apple implemented its business model when it came to its OS? Again, proof that your opinions are just that?not fact. From an engineering perspective you tout application isolation which is from a structural perspective; i.e. one that should not influence the OS at any lever, and this alone would prevent viral intrusions upon the OS layer. That collaboration between the OS and the application layers should have a unidirectional association, rather one-way communications between layers. This is rigid backwards thinking. Regardless of the application design, any OS can be hardened - hardened so much as to render it unusable. There are technical tradeoffs which you have overlooked in your understanding.
  As one in the industry since the mainframe days?even your statements here are incorrect. In the 80?s we were writing rogue code for the VAX VMS. Until you can account for every possible exploit ? which you cannot, vulnerabilities will exist regardless of the OS producer. Rather than the ?***-for-tat? will you publish the data on which you base your assumptions? If you are referring to research ? cite the references?

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  steelers8712/25/07 Report as spam
  13

  RE: How Microsoft Marketing Screwed Us All.

  they are simply evil

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/25/07 Report as spam
  14

  Not really...

  ...just venal. Microsoft is not unusually so. At least they've kept their corporate headquarters in the U.S., rather than jumping to an offshore location to avoid taxes. And many of their products (like the xBox) are top-notch.
  
  Microsoft's marketing practices in the 1990s, though, left a lot to be desired. It was predatory and shortsighted to implement and proliferate an operating system that is inherently and architecturally insecure.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/25/07 Report as spam
  15

  More

  The only other explanation for the security holes in Windows is simple stupidity. And that's too big a stretch. I happen to know that Microsoft's operating system developers included several individuals who had the experience and knowledge to code an operating system that used security rings to isolate the OS from applications and applications from each other.
  
  It MUST have been a conscious decision and it's about time that somebody put the blame where it belongs. Microsoft created an operating environment that made viruses inevitable. The idea of having something from entirely outside your own system (i.e. virtually anywhere) execute a program on your system that can alter the operating system is just plain idiotic. It's a recipe for problems.
  
  There should be -- and could be -- no way for ANY activity on the web to make ANY change to your operating system. It astounds me that so many people are blind to this obvious fact and not furious at Microsoft for designing an operating system with such a major and pernicious design flaw.

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  Sid Herron12/26/07 Report as spam
  16

  And so we should...do what, exactly?

  I'm not saying you're wrong on any count, but what's your point (other than to get it off your chest)? Unfortunately, at this point Microsoft is limited in the kinds of dramatic changes they can make in the Windows OS because we users demand backward-compatibility. Can you imagine the wailing and teeth-gnashing if they introduced a new OS that required people to replace ALL their existing software? (Look at the slow adoption rate of Vista, which is arguably a more secure OS than Windows XP, but has been hampered by, among other things, the unavailability of device drivers and, in some cases, incompatibility of legacy applications.)
  
  Now that we're all thoroughly pi$$ed at a decision that was made a decade or more ago by people that may not even work there any longer, what are you suggesting we do to make things better?

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/27/07 Report as spam
  17

  See my response...

  ...here:
  
  http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=200

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  xtier12/26/07 Report as spam
  18

  MULTICS

  ...and Multics was virus resistant not virus proof. Again you are in err. I cite the Multics "cookie" program as proof. Back to the books for you! Good grief!

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/27/07 Report as spam
  19

  So explain to me...

  ...why being "virus resistant" is not an improvement over being "virus inevitable." That's like saying "you could get a pimple just by staying at home, so you might as well go out and share needles with street hookers."
  
  The main point here is that the older operating systems were architected for security, not that the security was perfect. (Although Multics was secure enough to earn a governmental security rating, as I recall.)
  
  Maybe rather than trotting out an exception that proves my point, you could address the real issue, which is:
  
  Why can an outside program make changes in the operating system on my machine?
  
  I maintain it's because Microsoft sacrificed architectural security in favor of self-serving business reasons.

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  javaid.a.khan@...12/27/07 Report as spam
  20

  revisit the defination of an os

  OS by defination exsists to help applicaitons run on a machine. Try helping someone without being open. The more open you are the better you get in your help, more successful. Earlier systems were closed and secured, but how many people used computers back then. The fact that lots of people are using computers today is because there was an os out there which allowed many applicaitons to run on one single computer with one processor using same memory, no time sharing, but memory sharing. I do agree that there is lot more that needs to be done to secure os. And no i do not think that anyone can make money by making customers un secure.
  javaid

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine12/27/07 Report as spam
  21

  You're confused.

  You're confusing "open" with "insecure." A secure operating system design could be completely "open" with entirely published source code. In fact, there'd be no danger to such publication because such information would not allow programmers to hack into the system.
  
  It is still possible, with a secure operating system, to write any kind of program that you like, but it would not be possible for one application to change another application or to change the operating system.
  
  In fact, it is easier to write applications for such an environment because the application developer would not have to worry about building in security features that protect the program from other programs.
  
  By the standard definition of the term, Microsoft's operating systems are not "open" because you can't look at the source code. For all we know, there are dozens of special holes that Microsoft's programmers have put into the system to make it more difficult for other companies to invade their turf.
  
  There is at least one documented case of this, the infamous "netscapeprogrammersareweenies" back door in an early version of Microsoft Internet Server. I strongly suspect that if Microsoft published the source code to windows it would be full of security holes, because Windows is not secure architecturally.
  
  I think that Microsoft had business reasons for making an insecure operating environment, reasons that overrode the concerns of at least some of the company's operating system programmers.

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  jackiebarnett01/02/08 Report as spam
  22

  RE: How Microsoft Marketing Screwed Us All.

  Working as an integral part of a multi-disciplined team that encompasses business planning, technology, marketing, customer support, and sales doesn't appear to be in the author's background. I'm beginning to think this sales blog in BNET is just a gripe forum for sales people who are not involved with strategic operations or long-range planning functions and sees sales as an opposing discipline to marketing, rather than an integral piece of marketing.

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  amites01/02/08 Report as spam
  23

  RE: How Microsoft Marketing Screwed Us All.

  Love them or hate them Microsoft operates as a business,
  
  if you want to work with software that is designed to work rather than to make money then go try Linux,
  
  I'd personally recommend Ubuntu
  
  easy to install and free, office documents = open office
  mail = thunderbird
  browser = firefox
  etc...
  
  
  you have a choice, use the system designed to be ready for anyone to buy and use, or learn a little and use software designed to work...

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  swbratcher01/02/08 Report as spam
  24

  Capitalistic Voting Booth

  A friend once told me wisely, in a capitalist society "every dollar is a vote." I took it to heart. I don't vote for Microsoft. My votes go to Linux supporters and Apple. I also "voted" for Ron Paul with a pre-election donation. So, watch who you vote for. You should spend on quality, ethical behavior, responsible business practices, secure systems, politics that aren't in the pocket of some hidden objective, and generally only use your money to support and extend the existence of people and companies that you agree with the positions and practices of. My point?... I don't vote for Microsoft.

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  An Expat in France01/03/08 Report as spam
  25

  Take the Blinders off...

  Most of those who think that Marketing's only function should be lead generation probably equates "marketing" with "advertising" or developing sales promotions. If this is your interpretation, then your expereince with marketing professionals is different than mine.
  
  Google notwithstanding, companies have limited resources - financial and human. Part of marketing's function is to help (repeat "help") make decisions about what constitutes a good 'business' opportunity, and how best to apply those resources in order to exploit that opportunity. (I emphasise "business" oppotunity, as opposed to "sales" opportunity.)
  
  As a marketing manager, I have taken the heat from many, many sales managers who tell me what their challenges are, and how they think we could address them. I am fortunate enough to work with some highly competent professionals who understand that their's is not the only customer group on the company's radar screen. Sales organizations are motivated, managed and rewarded for their ability to penetrate a particular territory, vertical market or account list, and their perspective is understandably oriented toward that area of responsibility.
  
  What's more, in the wake of corporate decisions to diversify product and service portfolios, sales teams being asked to shoulder more and more responsibility for account managemenet - in order to maximize the revenue per customer and prevent competitors from gaining a foothold in a customer account. So it should come as no surprise that territory/industry sales managers - whose performance reviews are primarily based on revenue, by the way - are going to be more focused on how to satisfy the customers in their particular hunting patch than on the global picture.
  
  To their credit, the Sales professionals provide valuable feedback in product development and competitive positioning, but decisions that take months to implement, and which must be balanced against other priorities, have to be taken by someone/some group that is thinking toward a longer time-horizon than the quarterly (or even monthly) view that most Sales organizations are prone to do.
  
  Sales and Marketing go hand-in-hand, as they should. But teamwork and collaboration is what leads to success - not turf wars and mud-slinging. This is the face of Marketing in a mid- or large-cap company; Marketing (with input from sales, engineering, support, etc...) plays a role in determining who is targeted, and how they should be targeted. To be sure, some people who call themselves Marketers aren't up to the challenge, but let's not minimize the value of what it is that truly talented Marketing professionals do.
  
  But if you insist on continuing to demean the Marketing profession, where is your argument for the transactional sales person? e.g.: Someone who treats the customer as a piggy bank, and is only focused on this month's oppotunities?
  
  The engineering teams I have worked with are greatful that they don't have to deal with the customers who request a 100% customized product while demanding an off-the-shelf delivery schedule. And I know that sales teams are often put in difficult situations when they have to overcome customer objections; or occasionally have to walk away from a deal. But the professionals I work with recognize that while Mass Customization is a great concept, you simply cannot promise to deliver 6.2 billion different flavors of ice cream without the incumbent delays in engineering, supply chain, customer satisfaction and support issues.

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  Geoffrey James, Sales Machine01/04/08 Report as spam
  26

  Please repost this comment...

  ...it would really add to the discussion either here:
  
  http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=205
  
  or here
  
  http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=204
  
  Your comments are too thoughtful to get buried in this thread, which got rather more techie than I originally expected.

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  An Expat in France01/05/08 Report as spam
  27

  Re-Posted to #205 (minus previous typos)

  Based on your comment about responding to comments on #204 as part of the #205 thread, I reposted on #205 ("Seven Myths").

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  An Expat in France01/03/08 Report as spam
  28

  Oops... Sorry... I got a bit off topic.

  What I meant to say is: "Microsoft is evil!"