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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 2/24/2005 |
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Microsoft
announces they’re getting into new software markets – antivirus
and antispyware programs – or – they
should’ve done this back in the 80’s It’s
hard to turn on a TV news program today without hearing about some major
manufacturer who is doing a product recall – because a possible hazard
has been found with their product that could potentially do damage to the
person who bought the product. These
seem to range anywhere from children’s toys to automobiles, and it
makes me wonder why Microsoft hadn’t thought of doing this when they
first became the leader in the software industry back in the 1980’s. You see,
Microsoft has actually created a huge 3rd party marketplace of Utility
Programs - software intended to fix problems with Microsoft operating systems
and programs. In Microcomputer Revolution History, Microsoft was hired by IBM to write
the first pc operating system, but they had no experience writing operating
systems. They ended up buying a very rudimentary operating system –
QDOS – which stood for quick and dirty operating system - from another
Seattle company - and modifying it for the first IBM pc – and it became
the first version of DOS. Since
those early days, 3rd party companies emerged to fix problems and
faults in Microsoft products. A fellow named Paul Mace was writing his
master’s thesis on a pc, when suddenly he lost all his data, and he
went on to invent the Mace Utilities – a series of programs that would correct
potential problems in DOS and make safety copies of your data so you
wouldn’t lose it. Many
similar products emerged, like the Norton Utilities, a suite of products
intended to fix problems in DOS and later in Windows. Then when computer viruses first
started appearing – 3rd party antivirus companies like
McAfee Antivirus emerged, to protect pc’s
against the vulnerabilities that virus programs found in Microsoft operating
systems and programs. Then the internet emerged, allowing
computer viruses to spread at speeds never seen before, and with it came
Spyware and Adware – which have become the major security problem on
the Internet. And again these problems were dealt with by 3rd
party software vendors, not Microsoft. And the
technical issue always has been that these 3rd party vendors have had
to figure out how to protect Microsoft operating systems and programs –
without having access to the proprietary source code for those programs that
Microsoft owns and protects ! So now
finally, in 2005, the 30th year of the Microcomputer Revolution,
and 24 years after the introduction of the IBM pc which Microsoft supplied
the language and operating system software for, Microsoft has announced it is
getting into the Anti-spyware and anti-virus marketplace..... and has already released a beta version of its
anti-spyware program, which it says will be free, and has announced it will
be selling its own anti-virus program later this year. I believe
the term is ... better late than never..... and I
wonder how the Government Agencies concerned about dangerous toys and cars managed
to overlook computer software. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2005 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html (509)624-7230 |
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