Old Microsoft Gripes

A matter of trust by Brian Livingston of InfoWorld magazine December 9, 2002. Quoting: "I never thought I'd see the publisher of Windows issue an official document saying, "You shouldn't trust Microsoft." But that day has arrived." The article describes yet another Microsoft security bug (yawn) but with a twist. After this bug is fixed (patched) it can break again just by visiting a web page. However, you get into this situation only if you trust Microsoft (there is a lesson here). Quoting again from the article: "If you've ever downloaded an updated Windows component -- and you happened to check the box that says "always trust Microsoft" -- the insecure version of MDAC will install itself without any notice ... the only way to ward off this attack is to make sure you have no trusted publishers, including Microsoft." 

 The silent treatment by Ed Foster (the Gripe Line) in the December 16, 2002 issue of InfoWorld magazine. The article is about censorship in a Microsoft Visual C++ "sneakwrap" agreement. A member of the U.S. Air Force wanted to publish a technical paper that included a benchmark of a few C++ compilers, including one from Microsoft. The EULA says "you may not disclose the results of any benchmark test ... to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval." Despite phone calls, faxes and certified letters, Microsoft would not grant permission, in fact, they did not respond at all. Until, that is, the light of publicity was shone on them by Mr. Foster.  
A similar situation was described in The Constitution Meets Microsoft by John Woram April 10, 2001. His introduction: "You may have certain inalienable rights as an American citizen, but not as a Microsoft customer. The corporation's License Agreement forbids freedom of speech, and likewise denies freedom to the press. According to the Agreement, a reviewer must ask permission before stating an opinion in a public forum".  

Regarding a bug in blocking email attachments in Outlook Express, Woody's Windows XP Watch newsletter (November 26, 2002) said they made a mistake. No big deal. But it also goes on to say: "I can forgive people for making dumb mistakes. But I can't forgive Microsoft for acting like there's no problem. Microsoft knows that you can't over-ride the hard-coded settings in OE 6 SP 1. But they don't change the documentation - don't lift a finger to help people like you and me realize there is a problem. They don't tell us that any attempt to solve the problem is doomed from the get-go. I wonder how many people have lost how many hours on this one? Define for me, if you will, the term "trustworthy".  

Profit and Innovation at Microsoft November 21, 2002. New York Times. David Pogue. Quoting from the article: "At this point, it doesn’t really matter very much whether Windows is any good; that’s beside the point. When your company has 500 or 5,000 PC’s running Windows, switching to Macintosh, Linux, or anything else is simply too expensive to consider. In the business world -- which is what counts -- no mass switching can take place in any meaningful way ... As proof that companies have no choice, consider Microsoft’s new Software Assurance plan, in which corporations must pay for Windows and Office upgrades three years in advance, without even knowing what the new features will be -- if any. Microsoft locks in the profits, eliminates any incentive to improve the software, and prevents customers from trying out alternatives ... Why does Microsoft bother me so? Because in my view, its success relies primarily on this unique “you’re our customer whether you like it or not” arrangement. If Microsoft won through the superiority of its products or the brilliance of its new ideas, I wouldn’t resent its dominance one bit. (You go, Sony!)" 

A security problem in a public Microsoft file server made internal Microsoft documents available to the public. Among these documents was a customer name and address list with millions of entries. The FTP server was intended for use by Microsoft's product support organization, but the marketing department also used the server, unaware that it was accessible from the Internet. Microsoft Spills Customer Data  Wired News. November 20, 2002. On the Microsoft FTP server leak. The Register November 22, 2002 

FYI: How much money does Microsoft make on Windows? In a recent SEC filing, they reported that last quarter, the division of Microsoft that sells Windows had revenue of $2.89 billion and profits of $2.48 billion. That calculates out to a profit margin of 85 per cent. Assuming 91 days in the quarter, Microsoft made a profit of $27,252,747 every day on Windows. Twenty seven million dollars a day. The division that sells Microsoft Office reported profits in the same quarter of $1.8 billion, on revenues of $2.3 billion. In other words, a profit margin of 78% and a daily profit of $19,780,219. Office, Windows bring in the big bucks CNet, November 19, 2002. Read the actual SEC filing. 

A Microsoft PR firm issued a totally false ad campaign, "Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert" - to counter the Apple ads in which real people tell why they switched from Windows to the Mac. The person in the Microsoft ads however was not a real person. Someone from the Associated Press tracked down the PR company and the author. Microsoft yanked the testimonial after the truth was revealed. A copy of the ad can be found here. David Pogue wrote about this for the New York Times on October 17, 2002:  Ad Campaign Leaves Pie on Microsoft’s Face Quoting from the article: "Not only is it a childish attempt to mimic Apple’s “Switch” campaign, but Microsoft’s bogus customer is hopelessly misinformed ...  it’s part of a longer string of fraudulent Microsoft marketing efforts ... What does all of this say about a company’s corporate psyche that it feels the need to fabricate evidence of the public’s love?" Some other links about this are on the PR Watch web site for October 17, 2002 in the story Microsoft Invents a Fictional Consumer. 

Lies, Damn Lies, and Microsoft  Woody's Office Watch newsletter. October 9, 2002. "Only Microsoft would have the unmitigated gall to lie so blatantly, at this late date, and expect their customers to swallow it. I use the term lie quite deliberately, Microsoft is still making statements that it knew then and knows now are totally false".

Some serious griping about the way Microsoft handled the security problems in Word. You would never trust them again after reading this. From Woodys Windows Watch. September 23, 2002. 

Microsoft is defacing my city! In its continuing battle with AOL for most hated technology company, Microsoft debuted a new tactic today, putting decals for MSN all over New York City streets, sidewalks, traffic signs, phone booths, subway posts, doorways, planters, building facades, newspaper vending machines and traffic poles. Traffic signs! As if driving in New York City were not difficult enough, Microsoft is now covering over our traffic signs with their MSN decals. The local department of transportation referred to this as "...illegal, irresponsible and dangerous defacing of public property". For this illegal act, the city of New York fined Microsoft, a company with income of well over $30 million a day, fifty bucks. A Microsoft PR firm said "There are permits for everything". Which city agency issued the permits? To this question, the PR firm said "There's nothing else to say". 
Microsoft decals don't stick in NYC. By Margaret Kane. CNET News.com. October 25, 2002. 
New York Tells Microsoft to Get Its Butterfly Decals Out of Town. The New York Times. October 25, 2002. 

Consumers fill up Microsoft's coffers. October 19, 2002. By Dan Gillmor. Quoting: "Innovation is almost dead in desktop software, where Microsoft has sucked the blood out of the system." The author predicts that when Microsoft is out from under what's left of the antitrust case, it will go on an acquisition spree "the likes of which we cannot even imagine". A report cited in the article said that Microsoft has over $40 billion in cash and short-term investments. 

Security Breach Causes Headaches for Microsoft   By Matt Markovich, Tech Live. October 14, 2002. A computer security breach on a Microsoft web server, known as 'Betaplace', has forced all of the company's beta testers (over 23,000 people) to change their access identification and password, and has left some wondering about Microsoft's own computer security.  

Mad As Hell at Microsoft. Business Week magazine, October 21, 2002 issue. By Jay Greene. Page 68. Microsoft's new software licensing scheme for businesses has angered customers who gripe that the pricing rules are increasing their software bills. PC makers are also peeved because some businesses are shifting money away from hardware purchases to pay for the licensing program. Regulators are pondering whether this is an abuse of pricing power that stems from their Windows and Office monopolies. Microsoft says they are simply trying to make things easier for corporate buyers. Analysts expect the new licensing plan will kick-start Microsoft revenues. Microsoft expects an extra billion dollars in income from their Office suite this fiscal year. Sun is using this as an opportunity to push StarOffice, a competitor to Microsoft Office. StarOffice costs $25 in volume (a one time charge) vs. $185 a year, year after year, for Microsoft Office. The details of the licensing scheme are so complicated that one company assigned a person to work on it full time for six months just to figure out the impact of it. 

Feds' cyberspace plan should appeal to control freaks September 17, 2002. Dan Gillmor. The Mercury News. Mr. Gillmor had this to say about the just released National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace: 

FYI: See the Word gripes for major complaints against the way Microsoft has dealt with a large security problem in Word. September 16, 2002. 

End user licenses keep getting more intrusive  Dan Gillmor: The Mercury News. August 7, 2002. When you install the latest bug fixes and security patches for Windows XP and Windows 2000, you're presented with an End User License Agreement (EULA). Unless you accept the terms of this alleged contract...you are not permitted to continue the installation. In their EULA, Microsoft now claims a unilateral right to remotely alter your software, that is, to change the function of the product you've already purchased. An excerpt from a Microsoft EULA:

In many lines of business, this would be considered something close to extortion. Microsoft says we should simply trust them. Earth to Microsoft: You have a consistent record of selling brittle, insecure products and using unethical business practices. You haven't begun to earn our trust, and this kind of no-choice choice is one of the reasons why. 

My parents went to Redmond and all I got was this lousy Passport. Good Morning Silicon Valley. August 8, 2002. The Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with Microsoft over the "unfair and deceptive trade practice" complaints leveled against its Passport online authentication system. Passport lets you visit various web sites using a single log-on. Under terms of the settlement, Microsoft is prohibited from misrepresenting Passport and must create a new security program that will be certified every two years by an independent monitor. Consumer groups had complained to the FTC that the system collects too much personal information and does not take the necessary steps to protect it. The complaint said Microsoft made it difficult, if not impossible, for consumers to control their personal information. 
Microsoft settlement beefs up consumer security of Passport  August 8, 2002. Mercury News. In addition to bad security, Microsoft failed to notify customers that it tracks their visits to Passport-affiliated Web sites, and keeps the information, sometimes for months. 
Another Day, Another No-Penalty Microsoft Settlement. August 8, 2002. Dan Gillmor writes: "Once again, Microsoft is found not to be telling the truth about serious issues. And, once again, the governmental agency with the power to do something realistic fades away on contact. The FTC hasn't even issued a slap on the wrist here. It merely got Microsoft to agree not to do it again."   
Peter Deegan, writing in the Woody's WINDOWS Watch newsletter on September 2, 2002 is shaking his head over the deal between the FTC and Microsoft. He says that it doesn't discuss Microsoft's right to disseminate your personal information. A good article that Hotmail and MSN users should all read.   
For still, more on this:   
The Electronic Privacy Information Center is not a big fan of Passport. They have a long list of news stories with gripes about Passport. On January 29, 2002 they wrote to the 50 state attorneys general to investigate alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices related to Passport and Windows XP. Quoting from the letter: "These systems unfairly and deceptively gather personal information and expose consumers to the release, sale, and theft of their personal information. Microsoft's current privacy policy and click-through agreements fail to provide an understandable explanation of the company's use of personal data and present a false sense of security." Siliconvalley.com covered this. 

Caution: Monopolist at Work. Dan Gillmor's eJournal. July 27, 2002. 

What is Microsoft doing wrong? David Strom. Web Informant.  July 19, 2002. A report from Microsoft's Fusion trade show. 

Microsoft Should Offer Families A Deal With Its Office Program. By Walter Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal. July 18, 2002. Quoting: "There's a sucker in the software business today, and if you're in an average family with a couple of PCs, that sucker is you. Ever since last fall, Microsoft has, for the first time, forced families with multiple PCs to buy a separate copy of its Office productivity suite for each computer they'd like to upgrade to the latest version."  

Rosetta Stone. What If Palladium Doesn't Work? By Robert X. Cringely. PBS. July 18, 2002. Palladium claims to protect us from viruses and spam. However, the author notes that if Microsoft had simply limited Outlook to text e-mail, there would be no problem with mail viruses. Microsoft created the problem they are trying to fix. As for the anti-spam features in Palladium, the author says its certificate-based anti-spam capability will be compromised in its first hour on the market. Also, people will eventually realize there are instances when they do want to hear from people they don't know. Quoting: "Everything, you see, is about revenue, so anti-spam becomes a technique not for protecting consumers but for turning spammers into paying advertisers. Just watch it happen. I'm old and I know what I am talking about. "

Stupid Microsoft Tricks By Robert X. Cringely. PBS. July 4, 2002. There was a critical security update for Windows Media Player this week. The End User License Agreement was a doozy. It gives Microsoft "the right to go inside your computer and change pretty much anything they like even if it disables applications from other vendors -- applications you paid good money for. And if they do mess with the inside of your computer they don't have to ask permission or do anything except post an explanation on some web site somewhere..." 

I Told You So. Alas, a Couple of Bob's Dire Predictions Have Come True. By Robert X. Cringely. PBS. June 27, 2002. The author gripes about the just announced Palladium project from Microsoft. Quoting: Palladium is the code name for a Microsoft project to make all Internet communication safer by essentially pasting a digital certificate on every application, message, byte, and machine on the Net, then encrypting the data. But the real purpose of this stuff, I fear, is to take technology owned by nobody (TCP/IP) and replace it with technology owned by Redmond. That's taking the Internet and turning it into MSN. Oh, and we'll all have to buy new computers. This is diabolical. . . . Under Palladium as I understand it, the Internet goes from being ours to being theirs. The very data on your hard drive ceases to be yours because it could self-destruct at any time. . . .Palladium's real purpose, which is to increase Microsoft's market share. It is a marketing concept that will be sold as the solution to a problem. It won't really work. . .This is NOT about making things better for the user. This is about removing the ability for the end user to make decisions about how his or her computer functions. It is an effort by Microsoft to take literal ownership of Internet technology..."

Disclosing Terms by Ed Foster in Info World magazine April 29, 2002. If software vendors want their shrinkwrap/clickwrap agreements treated as real contracts, why won't they let us read them before we put our money down? Microsoft is one of a number of companies griped about in this article. They require you to purchase software, open it and possibly start to install it, before you can read the license agreement that governs it. Some Microsoft license agreements require you to not disparage Microsoft or to not make any benchmark results public without their permission.

April 21, 2002. Woody's Office Watch newsletter. Klez virus special issue. There is a bug in IE. This is neither news nor a gripe in and of itself. However, there are two gripes regarding the way Microsoft has dealt with the problem. The first gripe is the way Microsoft has not stepped up to the plate to admit the problem. Quoting Woody: "You might think that an email virus that targets Microsoft's operating system / browser would be worthy of a mention to their customers. You'd be wrong. . . Despite the threat against their products you won't find anything directly relevant on the Microsoft web site unless you know the code words - and even then you have to check the fine print...the intention is to be obscure and minimize the company's responsibility."  The other gripe has to do with the "tangled web of versions, upgrades, updates and patches" that you have to wade through to figure out which versions of IE need to be patched to avoid the Klez virus. It is disgracefully difficult to figure out if your copy of IE is vulnerable or not (the newsletter has all the gory details). Sherlock Holmes would be challenged. 
IBM mainframes have a reputation for reliability, much of which is due to the operating systems. If there is one thing an IBM mainframe operating can do, it is keep track of which versions of a program have a bug and what you have to do to fix that bug. This separates the men from the boys in computing. 
Further evidence of Microsoft incompetence regarding the care and feeding of its own bugs are the problems with its Baseline Security Analyzer tool which scans various Microsoft products for known vulnerabilities and alerts the user to missing or misapplied patches and hotfixes. It doesn't work. Read Flaws in Microsoft Tool Mount by Dennis Fisher of eWEEK April 15, 2002. Microsoft says people may be misinterpreting the results. 
Stephen Manes wrote in Forbes Magazine on May 13, 2002 about the shoddy way Microsoft distributes bug fixes to both Windows and Office XP. Quoting: "It's hard to think of another industry where customers are expected to repair defects whose fixes were developed months before."

Ian Emmons (Bio unknown) wrote a reader comment regarding the ObjectWatch newsletter by Roger Sessions. In the March 19, 2002 issue, Communicating Between Fortresses, he took Microsoft to task for their security problems. Quoting: Microsoft, more than other OS vendors, has a tendency to (a) install all possible bells and whistles with the OS by default, (b) enable all of those bells and whistles by default, and (c) run it all at a high level of privilege by default ... Microsoft...needs to install Windows by default in a minimalist fashion, installing only those services that are necessary, with some sort of post-installation wizard to selectively enable services for those who need them. For instance, UPnP is required by virtually no one today, so a minimalist install would mean that the UPnP buffer over-runs would have affected only a tiny percentage of users, rather than all WinXP installations. Microsoft also needs to use and promote the "principle of least privilege" throughout their development teams, code base, and user education materials."

High-profile anti-Unix site runs Unix. April 1, 2002. By Mike Ricciuti CNET News.com. A Web site sponsored by Microsoft and Unisys as a way to steer big companies away from the Unix operating system is itself powered by Unix software. The site, dubbed "We have the way out," runs on Web servers powered by FreeBSD, an open-source version of Unix, along with the Unix-based Web server Apache, according to Netcraft, which tracks Web site information. Both pieces of software compete with Microsoft's Windows operating system. The Wall Street Journal also covered this on page B2. 

Air Force seeks better security from Microsoft USA TODAY March 10, 2002. An Air Force official has warned Microsoft to dramatically improve the security of its software or risk losing the Air Force as a customer. 

This is partially a Windows XP gripe. But since it reflects a Microsoft policy decision, I've included it here too. A computer radio show mentioned that in the Home Edition the backup software is not installed by default. I confirmed this in a Windows XP book. Why does Microsoft assume home users don't need backups? They also said on the radio show that the reason the backup software is not installed is that there is no restore software for the Home Edition! A page on the Microsoft web site called Which Edition Is Right for You? says "Windows XP Professional provides more robust options for backing up and restoring data than Home Edition." Joe King, of pcradioshow.org, was nice enough to refer me to Woody's Watch for Windows XP who covered this problem on February 5, 2002. This is really a Microsoft disgrace, both the policy to do it and the incompetence in implementing it as described in Woody's newsletter.  Note: XP Home Edition users wanting to make backups can try my free backup script.

Lobbying: Microsoft and its employees gave more soft money political contributions in the 2000 election cycle than Enron according to a report was submitted to the judge in charge of the Microsoft antitrust trial. The patterns of soft money are disturbing. In the week before the original judge (Thomas Penfield Jackson) made his antitrust ruling, Microsoft went on a soft money spending binge. Microsoft has allegedly hired many law firms with antitrust expertise to work in unrelated areas simply to prevent these experts from helping the opposition. Is it coincidence that South Carolina withdrew from the antitrust suit three weeks after that state's attorney-general won re-election in 1998 with the help of Microsoft's donation, the largest unsolicited donation in the history of South Carolina? The company, with 30,000 employees, retains more lobbyists than the handful of companies with more than 300,000 employees. In the article, an expert is quoted as saying that Microsoft has engaged in political influence peddling "in many ways unprecedented in modern political history."  Microsoft's lobbying efforts eclipse Enron  by Matt Loney, ZDNet (UK), February 12, 2002. 

Windows MediaPlayer version 8, which comes with Windows XP, creates a log of the songs and DVD movies that users play. It also contacts a Microsoft web site to get information on audio CDs and DVDs. This Microsoft web site assigns a cookie which uniquely identifies a particular instance of the MediaPlayer software. This raises the possibility that information on your habits could be tracked and sold for marketing purposes or that the log file could be used by investigators, lawyers or snooping family members. Perhaps the biggest gripe is that Microsoft never told anyone about this and when they got caught, their response was to change the privacy policy for the Windows MediaPlayer program. Microsoft provides no instructions for deleting the log file. Windows Media aware of DVDs watched by Paul Festa CNET News.com February 20, 2002. Microsoft logging users' songs, movies  The Associated Press in the Miami Herald newspaper Feb. 21, 2002. Small MS DVD privacy invasion, not many dead The Register February 21, 2002. A long detailed article on the subject called Is Media Player Spyware? was written by Don Labriola of ExtremeTech on March 6, 2002. It gets to the bottom of this issue, including the location of the mystery log file.  

The Microsoft-English Dictionary 1.5 (What Microsoft Really Means To Say). By Richard Forno, InfoWarrior.org. Quoting: "As a public service, this article contains a helpful list of terms used by the company and what, in reality - not Newspeak - such terms actually mean. It's my hope that such insight - culled from personal experience and the input of technology professionals - will cut through the Newspeak fog and assist readers in determining for themselves what Microsoft is really saying in its public statements." My favorite dictionary word is "Issue": 
 (1)(n) - A feel-good euphemism used by Microsoft referring to a security problem. (e.g., "Microsoft has discovered an issue with......")
 (2)(n) - Microsoft's implied denial that a problem exists, calling it an "issue" instead of a "problem", "bug", "vulnerability" or "exploit."

Trust me, I'm From Microsoft. What's Really Behind Microsoft's New Commitment to Data Security. By Robert X. Cringely. January 17, 2002. Quoting: "...rather than a marking a real change, this announcement is more a matter of executing a strategy that has been coming for a long time. It is neither a response to the insecure nature of Microsoft products or a PR move. Rather, this is Microsoft's new way to get us all to buy more stuff." His point is that people no longer care much about the new features in some Microsoft software. If customers won't upgrade their software for new features, Microsoft is trying to get them to upgrade for security.   

Microsoft rigs the election. January 9, 2002. In what might be a true indication of the mindset of the company, Microsoft employees cheated in a poll run by ZDNet. The UK ZDNet web site ran a poll on the technology web developers planned on using in the future. Early on, the survey showed most planned to use Java. In a hurry though, the results changed to show that Microsoft's .NET was preferred by three-quarters of the respondents. Turns out Microsoft employees voted late, but often, very often. Read the results of ZDNet's investigation and a separate commentary from ZDNet. 

Microsoft Has Good Year, At Expense of Customers. Walter Mossberg. Wall Street Journal. December 27, 2001. Quoting: It has been a terrific year for Microsoft, but average consumers of its products haven't fared so well.

Security problems open Microsoft's Wallet. November 2, 2001. CNET News.com. Quoting: "Software flaws in the security of Microsoft's Passport authentication system left consumers' financial data wide open, causing the software giant to remove a key service from the Internet to protect people from having their data stolen ... The admission came after an open-source programmer demonstrated serious security flaws in Wallet--the Passport service that keeps track of data used by e-commerce sites. Microsoft shut down the service Thursday, casting a pall on the company's recent efforts to convince consumers that it is serious about security. The incident also undermined the software giant's claims that its Passport system can keep customers' financial data safe." Also covered by SiliconValley.com and PCWorld. 

Microsoft's Calculation. An editorial in the San Jose Mercury News. October 15, 2001. Microsoft has no "good faith" in dealing with the courts. They pulled out their calculator and figured they would be better off stalling than settling. Microsoft will be billions of XP-sales dollars richer by the time the courts put a noose around the company. In the meantime, it will be flaunting its monopolist powers with Windows XP.
Update: This article is now in the paid archives. It can also be read at the Clarkson Integrator. April 18, 2004. 

Pay Microsoft more, get bugs earlier. September 25, 2001. New Microsoft software licensing that begins October 1, 2001 has been met with gripes by its larger customers.  The plan, called "Software Assurance" changes the way large customers buy software programs in volume. Rather than choosing when they want to upgrade to a new version of Microsoft software, the plan requires customers to subscribe to a software maintenance program under which they would receive automatic upgrades. Be the first on your block to get the latest bugs. It also eliminates discounts for companies that now buy upgrades in bulk for individual products. For companies that upgraded their Microsoft software every 4 or 5 years, this will raise their costs by 30 to 107 percent according to the Gartner Group. The New York Times covered this October 1st in a story called Microsoft Customers Gripe About Automatic Upgrades. The Wall Street Journal covered it on September 25th on page B3 in a story called "Microsoft Plan For Licenses Sparks Gripes" by Rebecca Buckman. CNet also covered this on October 4,2001. Later stories reported a survey that showed that 80 percent of the effected companies expected their cost for Microsoft software to increase.  

Microsoft.Net: a new monopoly? ZDnet. August 29, 2001. The Burton Group analyst Gary Hein says Microsoft.Net can be summarized in one simple statement: Microsoft is building an Internet monopoly. Microsoft has integrated several Passport-enabled services directly into the Windows XP desktop. Windows XP users must use Passport to gain full access to Windows XP desktop services. This builds the Passport (and eventually HailStorm) subscriber base and creates a compelling justification for developers and content providers to adopt Passport and HailStorm within their offerings...Microsoft will use its desktop monopoly to create an irreplaceable Internet position...As a society, are we willing to cede control of the Internet to Microsoft for the sake of usability and convenience?

Real Consumer Choice Has Been Early Victim In Battle of the Titans. August 2,2001. Walter Mossberg, Wall Street Journal. Walter gripes about Microsoft and AOL not doing what's best for consumers. He calls Microsoft "the worst offender". Quoting: "..the company's real goal here isn't to help consumers, but to help itself by rounding up as many unsuspecting users as possible." 

Microsoft IM outage. July 6, 2001. Everyone suffers problems with their computer systems, Microsoft included. A Cnet article MSN users seek answers for glitch describes how their IM system has been on the fritz for days. The gripe is how Microsoft dealt with the problem. Not being able to fix it even after four days shows they are incompetent. The article describes many users complaining about poor communication from Microsoft about the problem and says people are also questioning the viability of the company's new Web services initiatives that rely on instant messaging, such as Microsoft.Net and HailStorm. Anyone can make a mistake, but to be "tight-lipped about the matter" is arrogant and inexcusable. Adding insult to injury Microsoft blames it on a hardware problem. Sure. What do you expect from a software company. It takes 4 days to fix a hardware problem?  I don't think so. A Reuters report on July 8,2001 said "The problem is an embarrassment for the world's biggest software company as it pushes its .NET strategy to develop a new breed of fee-based services, some of which will rely on instant messaging." 

Microsoft's dominance may just be beginning  May 21, 2001. The San Jose Mercury News. Dan Gillmor. Despite the antitrust trial, the author says that Microsoft's aims and tactics have barely changed. "...Microsoft's renewed belligerence has coincided with its apparently improving legal fortunes". The author details six instances of current monopolistic behavior by Microsoft. "These are the tactics of a monopolist. They are the practices of a company that is afraid to compete in a fair manner."  

Do you trust Microsoft? April 15, 2001 Interactive Week. An analyst is quoted in this article as saying "Microsoft is not well-trusted, and recent security exposures have many concluding that it is not well-protected either." The article notes that Microsoft has repeatedly failed to stop hackers and notes that the richer, more vast reservoir of information envisioned with Hailstorm represents a choice target for digital crooks and online merchants desperate for consumer data. Of course, Microsoft promises to hide that information if the customer desires anonymity. Yeah, sure. In the most damning part of this article, it notes that at the same time Microsoft is promising to protect your privacy and mine, it is working to prevent Congress from passing new laws that would guarantee such privacy. Microsoft's failure to endorse even the idea of federal legislation, critics say, raises questions about the company's commitment to consumer privacy.
The subject of trusting Microsoft also came up in a ZDNet Anchordesk story by David Coursey on July 25, 2001. Quoting from the story:  "I've asked Bill Gates why people should trust all their personal information (as .Net will require) to a company that can't avoid sending out critical security fixes every few weeks. He danced around the question, but he won't be able to dance around it in the marketplace." 
Update: April 11, 2002. Microsoft has given up on selling Hailstorm (later renamed My Services). After nine months of intense effort, the company was unable to find any partners. Microsoft was unable to convince either consumer companies or software developers that it had solved all of the privacy and security issues raised by the prospect of keeping personal information in a centralized repository. A Gartner Group analyst said that many companies don't want any company between them and their customers. Article by John Markoff for the New York Times. 

MS and Its Terms of Embarrassment April 5, 2001. Wired. Hailstorm depends on the Microsoft Passport software (see article below). Quoting from this article: "According to the terms of use of Microsoft's Passport service, the company has the right to 'use, modify, copy, distribute, ... or sell' your personal information." When a stink was made about this, Microsoft said they didn't really mean it, that the Passport terms of service were old. Not a good way to build trust. This article quotes Jason Catlett the president of Junkbusters: "... either they're being disingenuous or they're utterly incompetent, and I don't know which is worse." The article also notes that the terms of use are never displayed during a Passport sign-on. 
PC World magazine also covered this story on April 5, 2001. 

Trust me, I'm from Microsoft (and I am here to help you). April 2, 2001. By David Strom. This is an article about Hailstorm (see below) which requires people to trust Microsoft with their most personal data (credit card numbers, shopping preferences, etc). The article details many reasons that people do not trust Microsoft. Hailstorm will depend on software from Microsoft called Passport for security. Passport is used at Hotmail and Hotmail has had a slew of problems. Quoting from the article "...Passport is more a ticket to trouble than a way to trust Microsoft with my personal tidbits." 

Microsoft domains unavailable January 25, 2001. NTBugTraq by Russ Cooper. MSN, Expedia, Carpoint and the rest of the Microsoft web sites were unavailable for about 23 hours. Why? Human error says Microsoft. Mr. Cooper says "Stupid people do make mistakes" and if that's all it was, there would be no gripe. However, the entire Microsoft internal network where all these web sites reside was offline for 23 hours! For a DNS server configuration error to happen in the first place, Mr. Cooper says there is "clearly no peer vetting or management sign-off going on regarding production changes." As for a DNS problem being allowed to exist for 23 hours Mr. Cooper says "You think you might have a disaster recovery plan that gets invoked within an hour of confirmation that DNS is out..."   

A bug by any other name Design side effect? Known issue? by James Gleick. About how Microsoft uses language to put a good spin on things. First published in the New York Times Magazine June 15, 1997.