March 16th, 2007
OneCare: Microsoft Admits “they shouldn’t have rolled it out when they did”
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
You may recall my earlier story about OneCare’s recent failures in antivirus comparative testing. Not only that, but this month it was revealed that OneCare was deleting Outlook and Outlook Express files (not the emails, but the databases that hold the emails) when finding viruses.
Well, now they’ve gone and admitted they made a mistake releasing the product when they did. Not Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer, but Arno Edelmann, Microsoft’s European business security product manager (who is probably going to get raked over the coals for this).
“OneCare is a new product — they shouldn’t have rolled it out when they did, but they’re fixing the problems now,” said Edelmann. According to the security manager, security is only a small part of what Microsoft does, suggesting it does not have as much security expertise as established security vendors. Source: ZDNet UK
He also said (and this is bound to bring him more grief) “Usually Microsoft doesn’t develop products, we buy products. It’s not a bad product, but bits and pieces are missing.”
We Say: I’ve always said the first release of a Microsoft product is generally buggy. ‘Course, they’ve already released 1.5 and it’s still buggy!
Charles says:
Exactly how long would it take Microsoft to get as much experience (resources) as established security vendors.
They’re Microsoft with the deepest pockets of all! A few calls to some high end recruiters ought to do the trick.
Basically what he is saying is that ‘we don’t know what we’re doing as well as the other guys’. I applaud his candor, but geez, that is not what you want to tell your customers.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Michael Santo says:
Yah, that’s why I said he was bound to get grief.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
LZW says:
This is like when Microsoft had a beta antispyware program that disabled Internet Explorer… It frustrated some people but others seen it as a security enhancement!
March 17th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Bob says:
Release 1.5’s still buggy? Just look (way back) at the history of Windows - that’ll tell you that at Microsoft, Quality is Job 3.1 - or even 3.11.
March 19th, 2007 at 3:16 am