msnbc.msn.com — On the morning of the launch of the Vista operating system earlier this week, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates talked with NEWSWEEK’s Steven Levy about the new version of Windows—and the one after that. He also shared his views on those Apple television commercials.
Feb 2, 2007 View in Crawl 4
manovakFeb 3, 2007
I want to start by clearly stating that I am a Microsoft Windows user and that I use several of Microsoft's tools and applications. I also want to make it clear that this is by choice. This makes me the minority here on this posting.Now I have read several of your replies and know what you believe to be true. However, I have seen no evidence to support this opinions (granted I have not read every single reply so if you have provided evidence from a reliable source i.e. not Apple please email me).My purpose here is to post reliable information to point out some very interesting statistics that should be known here on this "forum." These facts come from two sources. The first of these sources is the ACM, the largest not-for-profit computing organization in the world (IEEE is more founded in electrical engineering). The second is hear-say about an article in MacWorld magazine. Since I did not read the second source myself and cannot provide a link I ask that you research this yourself.In the February 2007 edition of "ACM Queue" there is an article written by Vlad Gorelik of Sana Security titled "One Step Ahead." Here is the quote:"According to CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon, [University] [#1 Computer Science University as ranked by Princeton Review] the number of reported vulnerabilities climbed from 3,780 in 2004 to 5,990 in 2005. The 2005 levels were almost reached in the first three quarters of 2006. All software, whether open or closed source, has vulnerabilities. In 2005 there were 812 Windows operating system vulnerabilities; 2,328 Unix/Linux [includes Mac OS X] vulnerabilities; and 2,058 multiple operating system vulnerabilities, as reported by US-CERT."Here is a link to the online version of the article: <a class="user" href="http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1217256.1217266&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&idx=1217256&part=periodical&WantType=periodical&title=Queue&CFID=10543161&CFTOKEN=28325926">http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1217256.1217266&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&idx=1217256&part=periodical&WantType=periodical&title=Queue&CFID=10543161&CFTOKEN=28325926</a>Things in [] are comments that I have added. Please do not refute this by saying that OS X is no Unix. OS X is nothing more than BSD Unix optimized for specific hardware and with a nice GUI added. Which, I might add, makes Apples job a lot easier than Microsoft's in developing an OS.The other statistics are based on something I was told about from MacWorld. Let me setup an equation to show you what was explained to me:mv=mac viruses, wv=windows viruses, mu=mac users, wu=windows users, mv/mu >wv/wu.As stated previously I did not read that article myself so please do your own research on that.One final note: the reason Windows is attacked more and has more viruses written is because no hacker/cracker/malicious user wants to hurt 12% of the market. If they are going to take people down they are going to target the 70% market shareholder. *Note* - Hacker does not necessarily have a negative connotation.That is my defense of the Windows OS with clear facts; this is not just opinion.
gregrFeb 3, 2007
OK, let's do a real-world test.You buy a brand-new Windows machine or do a clean install of Windows/Vista.I'll do the same with OS X.Now let's connect them to the net and power them up.Which one do you think will be the first to be infected? see <a class="user" href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197002712&subSection=All+Stories">http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197002712&subSection=All+Stories</a>and the lack of viruses by obscurity is total BS. Millions of users infected would be a feather in any hacker's hat.
blackadderiiiFeb 3, 2007
@MythosNo, which is why all other voice recognition systems take the basic precaution of filtering out their own output - something programmers recognised would be essential before we even implemented it for real.
stevebor1Feb 4, 2007
It's nice to hear the fighting 10%
aarond12Feb 4, 2007
Wow! Billy boy is really breaking out the FUD. He must truly be scared. So many things didn't make the cut in Vista, like the database-driven file system, reducing the reason to upgrade. Is Vista better than XP? Probably. Is it enough to upgrade an XP installation that is working perfectly well? Probably not.
danielwsmitheeFeb 5, 2007
I didn't mean to lump you with the $450 server crowd it was meant to be a seperate response to two comments. While yes there are more powerful servers available in $6000 range, with 4 sockets instead of two. The XServe with OS X Server can run anything you can run on any other UNIX platform just fine which you implied that it will not.
mrvandelayFeb 10, 2007
All is fair in Love and War. Apple's MAC OS X has had far more vulnerabilities last year (2006) and the start of this year (2007) vs Windows XP SP2.statistics: National Vulnerability Database: <a class="user" href="http://nvd.nist.gov">http://nvd.nist.gov</a>2006 MAC OS X vulnerabilities: 1022007 (thus far Feb.) MAC OS X vulnerabilities: 182006 Windows XP SP2 vulnerabilities: 292007 (thus far Feb.) Windows XP SP2 vulnerabilities: 1it is not always the initial code writting that is the problem for either vendor, the problem is that 'at the time' the code 'was' written the attack techniques were not even invented. To call a vulnerability a 'code flaw' really is not correct. IMO
lomour1Dec 23, 2007
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