Slate: Microsoft vs. Computer Security - Why the software giant still can't get it right. Slate: Microsoft vs. Computer Security - Why the software giant still can't get it right.

'Four years ago, Bill Gates dispatched a companywide e-mail promising that security and privacy would be Microsoft's top priorities. Gates urged that new design approaches must "dramatically reduce" the number of security-related issues as well as make fixes easier to administer. "Eventually," he added, "our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it."

Microsoft customers haven't stopped worrying.'

The author, Adam L. Penenberg, suggests that the problem is that security has never been a priority with Microsoft, and that good security testing should have shown many of its products' vulnerabilities before being shipped.

My view is similar. Microsoft doesn't seem to develop code with the fact in mind that it is the dominent software vendor in the world today. The tools needed to significantly raise the quality of their software have been around for a decade or so now, and they apparently aren't using them, or, if they are, not enough.