Slashdot | Microsoft Acquires Spyware Removal Company:
"Looks like they are investigating how much, not if."
I was reading the comments of readers on this article and it struck me how short term people look at things. Its plain to me, that moving to the .net framework and integrating it more closely with the next release of Longhorn even more closely is an important goal for Microsoft. And this integration will rid Microsoft of one large security issue with its current code base, that is buffer overflows. Why do you think there was this whole issue of the next version of IE being limited to Longhorn. Why do you think that Microsoft is designing IE from the base up? Because they realize that the security model in their current implementation of IE sucks. They need to redesign it from the base up. And what the user base for Windows has shown is that they will moan and groan, but wont switch to a new platform.
The emphasis of Windows 3.1 was the move away from the command line to the GUI. The emphasis from Windows 95 was true multitasking and a refined interface. The emphasis of Windows 2000 was stability. The emphasis of Windows XP was better integration with Windows 95 apps and games, a better interface to compete with Mac OS X. The emphasis on Longhorn is going to be security. Why do you think they are cutting out features like WinFS. Because there are other more important things that the market demands. Thats the way a company works and keeps its shareholders satisfied. Moving to managed code is going to save Microsoft a lot in terms of security issues. Further I believe there is a lot of ActiveX stuff that is going to be changed so that it has a better security model. And the market will make a huge fuss and cry but still stick to Windows XP instead of moving to Linux or Mac.
Ofcourse this is all just my opinion.
