Microsoft has, I think, easily handled “open source” with it’s campaign of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt), but could it handle dealing with all of us on different fronts?
The reason I pose this is that Microsoft’s PR machine is now in gear trying to cope with Firefox. Check out this great quote:
Microsoft’s security and management product manager, told attendees that IE undergoes “rigorous code reviews” and is no less secure than any other browser.
“Because IE is ubiquitous, you hear a lot more about it, but I don’t think that Internet Explorer is any less secure than any other browser out there,” English said.
This is really more desperate than pathetic isn’t it? Ok, it’s both, but the point of my post here is to pose the question of whether Microsoft’s PR FUD machine could deal with fighting on as many fronts as we all have the potential to open. I have the feeling that we could easily scale to this while the fact that MS would be engaging is a bigger message than whatever they could say in response.
Ok, ‘open source’, Servers, DBs, Browsers, Email, Accounting, Media Players, etc etc etc…
English?
Am I the only one who thinks it's ironic that the quote was from someone whose last name is English? English is a term in billiards to mean spin. Heh.
MS, lose the OR Logic
"Because IE is ubiquitous" AND because it's less secure than Firefox , "you hear a lot more about it,"
IE is @V6.x
Firefox is @1.0
Is the security track record of IE v6.x really something to be proud of?
Ubiquity is the problem
I think we'd be better attacking them for being ubiquitous (ahem, via an illegally abused monopoly) than for being insecure. They can both deny that they are insecure (because *everyone* knows secret code is more secure) and even potentially fix the more egregious problems, but there's no escaping their ubiquitous status amongst users who don't know any better.
Do you want to be using the browser that all the bad guys target because that's what all the stupid people use? Or do you want the browser for the sophisticated elite, that are too smart to fall for phishing scams and therefore don't get targetted.
Talking of the sophisticated browsing elite, Mozilla should really try to discover the demographic profile of their users. I'd guess they spend a lot more time and money online and therefore punch above their weight with regard to browser share.