Desktop Security And Vista: When Windows Passes Apple And Firefox

Looking Forward

Microsoft’s recent reorganization into three operating units greatly increases its efficiency and focus on platforms like Windows and should, if done correctly, further accelerate their qualitative improvements that include security.

Jim Allchin has made this his personal mission and looks at Vista as his legacy. It is partially why we’re seeing what appears to be an uncharacteristically massive improvement over what is, for Microsoft, a relatively short period of time.

Part of the problem at Microsoft has been the attrition of key people and the dissatisfaction of those remaining.

Bureaucracy has been highlighted as the core problem and the reorganization coupled with Ray Ozzie’s promotion into the spot behind Bill Gates should address this issue very well. Ozzie is as well regarded as Linus Torvalds and is known as someone who takes care of his people.

This should result in a transition, over time, for Microsoft into a better place to work and it also showcases a change in the firm from one that was more IT-executive focused to one that is more developer-focused.

This is a return to Microsoft’s early roots in a way and positions the company much better against the open source threats it is facing. In effect, it puts a person who understands the key benefits of open source in a position to change the company to better provide similar benefits to developers.

This connection improves the entire .Net platform and goes well beyond Windows over time, once again focusing on Microsoft’s sustaining competitive advantage which has more to do now with the entire .NET platform then it does just the OS.

With Windows Vista’s benefits largely surrounding its improved security it isn’t hard to picture a time in the not-to-distant future when we may conclude that Windows and IE are secure enough and that the other platforms are once again wanting.

We can recall that the original Netscape browser was light years ahead of IE but that IE passed it within a couple of years. Netscape no longer exists as a company largely as a result of that and some incredibly foolish executive decisions.

While far from perfect, Microsoft has shown an impressive ability to focus on threats to its future and its ability to trounce IBM, Novell, and Netscape over the years has been showcased over and over again.

This time it is all about security and, if Microsoft can keep up the pace, they have every possibility of hitting this goal and once again set the pace for their competitors.

In short, we are seeing the result of Microsoft being mad and focused and as IBM, Novell, Sun, and Netscape have learned; when Microsoft is both mad and focused they do get the job done.

Rob Enderle is an analyst specializing in emerging personal technologies. He heads the Enderle Group, and has been an IT analyst since 1994. He spends his free time building computers and playing with personal technology prototypes. He can be reached at [email protected].