Apple software are the most unsecure one : Secunia

Apple displaced Oracle out in the race of companies with the most security vulnerabilities in its software, according to security company Secunia. In first half of 2010, Apple had more than any other software vendor. Microsoft is on distant third-place. Secunia has tracked security vulnerabilities and issues advisories since 2002, producing periodic reports on the state of software.

Apple is going to get bit hard if they keep thinking that security through obscurity is the way to go. They need to crack down hard on their developers, and implement better security testing (and testing in general-I can't count the number of times mobile safari, email, and other apple apps on my stock iPhone have crashed) in their development cycle.

Apple is the most valuable company (as per the stock market) and hackers will be interested to exploit vulnerabilities in its software. Apple should launch a program on the lines of Microsoft Patch Tuesday to regularly update it's software and keep customers systems safe.

PCs are better than Macs

We have all seen the Apple commercials where the young hip guy says,” Hi I’m a Mac.” And the dumpy guy in a business suit says,” I’m a PC.” These commercials lead to the idea that Macs are just the cat’s meow, and PCs are worthless and pathetic. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth, and to prove this I will focus on three areas: market share, security, and value.

First up is market share. If we were to judge solely by the media hype surrounding Apple, it would seem that Apple has to be making a killing. Lines form outside their stores; the faithful awaiting the arrival of the newest widget or gizmo, sometimes for days in advance. The iPad sold one million units in one month, and the new iPhone sold out before it was even in stores (Santo, June 16, 2010)( Willington, May 4, 2010). So Apple must have a large share of the computer market, right? Wrong. In 2009 Apple’s market share was 7.6 percent in this country and about 2-3 percent worldwide; systems running the Mac operating system accounted for only five percent of internet traffic, and that is including the iPhone (Costa, August 27, 2009). To be fair, today in 2010 Apples market share has improved somewhat to around ten percent in the United States. A small increase of only two percent, and over in Europe ninety-two percent of the computers are running some form of Windows (Schramm, May 27, 2010).

Remember the commercial where the PC guy is sniffling and sneezing because he had a virus? Mac systems are so secure they do not have to worry about viruses, worms, and such, or so we are told. According to Rive Richmond of the New York Times, security software maker Symantec (makers of Norton Anti-virus) said,” Mac’s relative safety is primarily a result of their still slim market share ”( Richmond, 2009, April 16). That is Mac’s present too small of a target for hackers to waste their time on. They went on to say twenty-six vulnerabilities were found in Mac OS X in 2008, almost as many that were found in Vista for that year (Richmond, 2009, April 16). In March of this year, Apple came out with a security update to address some fifty-three vulnerabilities (Kerner, March 30, 2010). Some were in their Core Media engine, Quick Time media player, ImageIO image renderer, and a spell-checking vulnerability of all things (Kerner, March 30, 2010). Even more telling is the fact that this update is the first major update since November 2009(Kerner, March 30, 2010). That is not what I would call a secure system, just lucky instead.

Windows is not a perfect operating system though, far from it. Those of us in the Windows world have Patch Tuesday. Patch Tuesday is the second Tuesday of each month. On this day Microsoft releases all the updates for their software. Yes, we may grumble and groan about the time it takes to download and install these updates, but Microsoft has done a good job of making them pretty painless. At least Microsoft recognizes and works to correct the errors in their software instead of living in denial. I have noticed that since Windows 7 came out that Apple has stopped airing those cheeky little ads. I wonder why.

What about value? Do Apple computers really represent money well spent? Let’s compare two systems; Apple’s $1200 iMac versus a HP system of similar price.

Apple iMac ($1199.00) HP HPE310t (1209.98) as configured

3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor 2.8 GHz Intel i7-860 Quad Core cpu

21.5 inch wide screen monitor 21.5 inch wide screen monitor

1920 x 1080 resolution 1920 x 1080 resolution

4 GB memory 8 GB memory

500 GB hard drive 750 GB hard drive

8x double layer DVD burner 16x dual layer light scribe DVD burner

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics 1 GB Ati 5570 graphics card

The prices and specifications are accurate as of June 22, 2010(Apple Store, June 22, 2010) (HP Official Store, June 22, 2010). The two systems match up only in regards to the monitors. Everything else is a clear win for the HP. The HP has twice as many cores, twice the memory, fifty percent larger hard drive, a better video card, and the DVD drive is also faster. In my opinion, it is very hard to make a case for Apple being a better value.

So where do we stand? Apple only has a ten percent market share, the operating system requires updating just like Windows does, and when compared dollar for dollar, Apple loses. When those points are considered, Apple just does not measure up to all the hype and that is why “I’m a PC.”

References

Apple Store, http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac?aid=AIC-NAUS-K2-CONFIGURE-IMAC-INDEX&cp=CONFIGURE-IMAC-INDEX

Costa, D. (August 27, 2009). Apple’s mind share matters most. Retrieved June 19, 2010 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352103,00.asp

HP Official Store, http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/cto.do

Kerner, S. (March 30, 2010).Apple Fixes 53 Security Vulnerabilities in Mac OS X. Retrieved June 20, 2010, http://www.esecurityplanet.com/news/article.php/3873656/Apple-Fixes-53-Security-Vulnerabilities-in-Mac-OS-X.htm

Richmond, R. (2009, April 16). Macs Aren't Safer, Just a Smaller Target. p. B.7. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from National Newspaper Abstracts. http://lirnproxy.museglobal.com/MuseSessionID=ec3bbf38f78427d9eb69d5997ddef29b/

Santo, M. (June 16, 2010) Both Apple, AT&T Sell Out of iPhone 4s, Retrieved June 17, 2010 http://hothardware.com/News/Both-Apple-ATT-Sell-Out-of-iPhone-4s/

Schramm, M. (May 27, 2010) Apple market share climbs to 6.8% in Europe. Retrieved June 17, 2009 http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/27/apple-market-share-climbs-to-6-8-in-europe/

Willington, R. (May 4, 2010). Apple Sells 1 Million iPad Tablets in First Month: The Revolution Is On. Retrieved June 17, 2010 http://hothardware.com/News/Apple-Sells-1-Million-iPad-Tablets-In-First-Month-The-Revolution-Is-On/

Windows 7 ballot Screen

Dave Heiner has today announced on Microsoft issues blog that "A week ago the European Commission has welcomed Microsoft's proposal to provide Windows users a “consumer ballot screen” to select the Web browser of their choice to surf the Internet."

Microsoft think tank will be remembered for years for their wisdom. Microsoft will please EU with this option without loosing significant market share. How? Dave stated "Computer manufacturers (Microsoft partners) are free to install any browser and set any browser to be the default when building Windows-based PCs. In reality, computer manufacturer will not take pains to install a different browser on their machines as Internet Explorer will be already build into Windows 7 as a default browser.

For normal user big e (IE icon) is the synonym for Internet. User will not bother to install different browser. Some tech savvy user may think of shifting to other browsers but it will have minimum impact on Microsoft's overall market share.

Moreover IE8 is capable enough to compete any other browser in the market. Users will not feel the need to move to any other browser until unless they hate Microsoft(But if someone hates why will he buy windows machine on the first place).

Microsoft Future : Truth and Facts

I have been reading articles about the decline of Microsoft. Authors have predicted slow but sudden death of Microsoft. People say Microsoft is no more an innovative company. Google, Apple, Oracle and others have better products. Microsoft did not invest in futuristic technologies. There is no future of Microsoft in post-pc or Internet Era. Microsoft revenues are based on Microsoft Windows and Office only, free software movement will kill Microsoft.

I agree with some points but some are there only to create hype. let's try to analyze:

Microsoft is no more innovative organization:

Microsoft has so many innovative products in pipeline like surface, natal, project pink, live language translator etc.

Microsoft Surface, a touch based table mounted computer is a revolutionary device. Touch is the natural way to interact and surface is good at it. Surface is providing a new dimension to customer experience. Customers are provided with enormous flexibility and ease to find information about products.

Microsoft walls, an extended version of Microsoft surface is in works as well. Microsoft vision about these products is depicted in a concept video. Touch is the future and Microsoft has the tools.

Project Natal, is a controller less gaming environment. It's like playing game at outdoors. Bill gates said that project natal will not be restricted to games, it will have industry application as well.

Windows Azure, the next generation cloud operating system, is the only commercially available Cloud OS is market. People condemning Microsoft for not investing in future technologies should have a look at Windows Azure. Programmers already familiar with Windows programming modules are more likely to embrace Azure as compared to any other cloud OS (is there any other?)

There are so many other innovating products coming from Microsoft.

To be continued...

Future posts will concentrate on following:

Microsoft eco-system, application stack is no more relevant to Internet Era:

Competitors have better product than Microsoft:

There are no enthusiasm in people for Microsoft:

Windows Mobile, Browser wars, Industry support (Backward compatibility)