I Told You So...
-- I, Cringely | The Pulpit
What bothers me the most about it is not just that we are being sold a bill of goods by the very outfit responsible for making possible most current Internet security problems. "The world is a fearful place (because we allowed it to be by introducing vulnerable designs followed by clueless security initiatives) so let us fix it for you." Yeah, right. Yet Palladium has a very real chance of succeeding. How long until only code signed by Microsoft will be allowed to run on the platform? It seems that Microsoft is trying to implement a system that will enable them, once and for all, to charge game console-like royalties to software developers...
...Let's understand here that not all Microsoft products are bad and many are very good. Those products serve real customer needs and do so with genuine purpose, not marketing artifice. But Palladium isn't that way at all. 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, Microsoft's "embrace and extend" strategy applied for the Nth time, though on a grander scale than we've ever seen before. While there is some doubt that the PC will survive a decade from now as a product category, nobody is suggesting the Internet will do anything but grow and grow over that time. Palladium assures that whatever hardware is running on the network of 10 years from now, it will be generating revenue for Microsoft. There is nothing wrong with Microsoft having a survival strategy, but plenty wrong with presenting it as some big favor they are doing for us and for the world. [Privacy Digest]
I said this months ago...Microsoft would turn it's "Trustworthy Computing" agenda into a money making scheme. They would kill older prooducts to drive the sale of new products, while telling us it was so the software would be more 'secure.' Soon they will use it as an excuse to drive subscription software. There is nothing that MS does that they will not try and do in a fashion that will gain them favor in the marketplace. Embrace and Control with no boundaries, no limits is a daily mantra in the halls of Redmond. To think that the JOD wants us to trust that there is a chance in hell that MS will restrain itself in the marketplace without a nice sturdy chain is the height of stupidity...mj
11:50:35 PM 
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