MSFT Retaliates Against Google's Security Claims

"The heart of the issue seems to be that most employees don't know the entire corporate scope, and simply enjoy ruffling a few Microsoft fathers."

So Microsoft has... More than one dad?

Just a few things to correct:

"Are Macs just a vulnerable and Windows machines?"

and

"....and simply enjoy ruffling a few Microsoft fathers."

And, of course, Google have an impeccable security slate (think China/GMail incident).

C'mon that guy's joking? UAC? A joke! Ppl turn it off. Even I click-click without reading and thinking. It so bothersome I don't use Linux/Unix much but what they are is what it should be... at least.

These articles need more proofing, as rosanjin states above. Another correction needed for "covers all the basis".

I find the news of a large tech company removing Microsoft Windows from the desktop very interesting. It's been known for a long time that the total cost of ownership is a big issue for corporations. If you can deploy and support an alternative which reduces your TCO year over year that turns into more revenue for your company.

Microsoft made major inroads into corporate desktops through providing a lower TCO many years ago. I think it has flipped on them and they stand to lose ground in the coming years.

They should use linux or some other open source os.
Why ?
When you find a hole, you can patch it and spread the patched source, so everybody benefits from it.
With both macos and windows, you just CANNOT do that.

alexkitch: I take it you completely didn't read the basis for Google leaving windows behind. Their claim was Windows and its inherent security flaws were the cause behind the China/Gmail incident.

I would expect google to go to chrome. Its their operating system. Of course they are going to ditch windows if they can do it themselves.

The fact that Google aren't using Chrome is a pretty big indicator of how limited it is as an OS. Google are smart enough to know that Chrome can't do 3/4 of the stuff that Windows or OSX can, despite all the yapping and yawing they've done over it in the press.

Windows security is built on layers of compatibility which makes the OS slow and consumes more resources (RAM, CPU, etc.). This is the price of trying to be compatibile with everything you can toss in a PC over the past 30 years. The compatibility layers are huge security holes and is the reason why Windows 7 (and Vista and XP) have 5-10 security updates every week of every year the OS implemented Windows Update services.

If Microsoft want to move forward and be able to financially keep up with Apple, they NEED to start from a fresh OS slate and toss compatibility out the window. Ground up build of an OS is LONG LONG LONG overdue at Microsoft. If people need to live in the past and retain compatibility with their existing games/applications, then Dual Boot and VM (Virtual Machine) have been around a long time and work VERY well. This is the lesson Microsoft seem unwilling or unable to learn ... it maybe too late given Google's fresh slate OS due out soon.

It's sad to see what Ballmer has done to Microsoft, his lack of vision has left them behind Apple financially and a huge Giant like Goolge is about to release a new secure OS on the world and what is Microsoft trying to do ... come up with Tablet OS to take on iPad. Shakes head, Ballmer just doesn't get it.

Ballmer rode the "leverage" wave for a long time, now that the wave has finally hit the shore he's got nothing.

I've been around the Windows blogs since they first came out with Vista RC 1. Unfortunately, in recent years the commenters there are more and more Windows haters, much more so than there are Mac haters here.

So... Security by obscurity works? [¬_¬]

" "When it comes to security, even hackers admit we’re doing a better job making our products more secure than anyone else," he said, referring to Marc Maiffret, chief security architect at FireEye (Pwn2Own hacking winner says otherwise)"

I read the linked article and I don't see where Charlie Miller "says otherwise". At the end of the article, he clearly says that Apple is less secure than Windows.

Well, the MS guy has a point - they *have* made the biggest strides over the last decade security-wise. Of course, it helps that they started with a system that was a hyper-insecure POS that could get infected with a keylogger from a user mistyping a domain name. From there, *every* improvement in security is a huge leap!

So....why is everything lately Windows vs Mac?

It makes sense for a company like Google to ditch Windows. Why pay for an OS when they are striving to be completely OS-independent? In Google's ideal future, you only need a web browser. I'm sure Google already has plenty of linux-saavy people to keep their systems running (thus, no basis to Microsoft's claim that Linux is more expensive).

The only problem is the report that they plan to move to Mac OS. There's no security reason to switch, and once hackers know Google is using Mac OS, they'll just target their attacks for that OS's vulnerabilities.

The security argument is garbage. Out of the box Windows 7 is more secure than Snow Leopard is. The real exploit are integrated applications, not the operating systems themselves. Windows and Mac OSX are both quite stable and secure and comparable to each other. The real exploits in OSX are Safari, Quicktime, and iTunes. Each gives an 'easy in' with the OS to exploit it. Microsoft has done quite a number of things to ease this. Apple, on the other hand, is like Microsoft was 10 years ago. They don't admit there's a problem and they are slow to fix it.

This isn't saying that Windows 7 is full proof. It still has some security problems, and I'd pick linux over either of them as a security focus, but to say that OSX is more secure than Windows isn't true.

Google should just come out and admit the real fact "Microsoft is now a large competitor of ours in the operating system space. To that end, we don't want our employees using their software."

Maybe no one even hacked google - they just made that up to have a reason to ditch windows, but not worsen the relations with microsoft...not sure how this would be worth to them though.

Its not really Windows fanboys verse Mac fanboys. Its more Windows fanboys verse Mac fanboy. Probably have more Unix fans then Mac fans here.

hmm, i doubt big corporations are going to shift from ms to apple, that's a step in an even more locked down and less secure direction. Apple IS, afterall, for people who love to be deceived. I need to read more about chrome before i make any decison on that OS. The open source model is definately a good way to go, why nevertell was marked down for his comment i don't know. I'm guessing that some people don't like the idea of helping make stuff better.

Technically, Windows is more secure today than Mac. Overall it is less secure because it is more of a popular target for hackers. After all Windows has 91% and Mac only has 5%.

To be honest, I'm starting to wonder if the China attacks were staged (or at least "allowed") in order to generate a reason for dumping Windows with a brouhaha instead of just quietly switching platforms. I can see Google wanting to put on a show about its biggest rival.

It's a rather foolish move by Google to be honest. I could see if they wanted to move to an internally built version of linux but moving from Windows to Mac OS X is like removing the door from the front of your house and putting up a current of beads in its place.

You know, I'm convinced Parrish mistypes on purpose to mess with people. And aside from the afore-linked, where he even states exactly what I was going to put out, PC IS more secure than Mac...it's just got 90% of the marketshare and 90% of the hacker focus, so there's a LOT that's known about how to hack it. With google switching to All-Mac/Linux, they're inviting a world of hurt onto themselves AS WELL AS the Mac community. Mac is in the teen's of marketshare right now, once it jumps to the twenty's, the hackers start noticing and they will be exploited to the gills.

Tl;dr: Windows more secure, Mac only better because not on hacker's radar. Google raising Mac's profile endangers all Mac users, and inherently themselves...thusly shooting themselves in the foot.