Most everyone agrees that, if you are going to run that other OS you should at least:
- run a good firewall
- run a good anti-malware tool
- patch regularly
That is over and above the usual stuff about back-ups and disaster-plans which should be part of any IT system. The back-ups and disaster-plans were exercised this weekend by many customers of McAfee. They got into trouble because they were following #2, above. McAfee zapped an important system file and XP SP3 was toast. A lot of customers will be angry with McAfee and demand compensation and/or change suppliers. Why aren’t they angry at M$ who makes them work so hard just to have IT? This must be the “last straw” for a lot of people. Pity the folks who have not completely automated their recovery. They had to visit each machine and re-image. XP SP3 is everywhere. McAfee is everywhere, too.
Latest 10-K filing:”If our products do not work properly, we could experience negative publicity, damage to our reputation, legal liability, declining sales and increased expenses.
Failure to protect against security breaches. Because of the complexity of our products, we have in the past found errors in versions of our products that were not detected before first introduced, or in new versions or enhancements, and we may find such errors in the future. Because of the complexity of the environments in which our products operate, our products may have errors or defects that customers identify after deployment. Failures, errors or defects in our products could result in security breaches or compliance violations for our customers, disruption or damage to their networks or other negative consequences and could result in negative publicity, damage to our reputation, declining sales, increased expenses and customer relation issues. Such failures could also result in product liability damage claims against us by our customers, even though our license agreements with our customers typically contain provisions designed to limit our exposure to potential product liability claims. Furthermore, the correction of defects could divert the attention of engineering personnel from our product development efforts. A major security breach at one of our customers that is attributable to or not preventable by our products could be very damaging to our business. Any actual or perceived breach of network or computer security at one of our customers, regardless of whether the breach is attributable to our products, could adversely affect the market’s perception of our security products and our stock price.
False alarms. Our system protection software products have in the past, and these products and our intrusion protection products may at times in the future, falsely detect viruses or computer threats that do not actually exist. These false alarms, while typical in the security industry, would likely impair the perceived reliability of our products and may therefore adversely impact market acceptance of our products. In addition, we have in the past been subject to litigation claiming damages related to a false alarm, and similar claims may be made in the future.
…
Total net revenue
$ 1,927,332,000 ”
The world is laying out tens of billions of dollars to McAfee and many other businesses to secure that other OS. Why is M$ not held responsible for doing that? Is it because no one trusts M$?
Between the patching, the re-re-reboots, the war against malware, and disasters like this one, wouldn’t the world be much further ahead to use GNU/Linux instead? If GNU/Linux lacks features that users of IT feel is important, they could spend their money on improving GNU/Linux instead of keeping that other OS alive, sometimes. All these billions could be put to better use.
8670
8549
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2
0
12275 
5572 
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1570 
1425 
189 
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0 
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0 