Microsoft Surface Needs a Patch Already. Is it Doomed?

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Microsoft, are you serious? You want to take on Apple with a tablet that needs a patch already? Microsoft Surface RT has only been available for a few weeks. I asked if this tablet endeavor was Mission Impossible on October 16th:

Microsoft, here is your mission. Take a device which has become synonymous with the term “post-PC era” and topple it. Go up against a company which is considered cool and somehow transform your image to be as cool. If you decide to accept this mission you must take your reputation for developing bloated operating systems and software and scale it all down to run in a tablet form factor where a person can use the device for an entire day without recharging. Furthermore, you have to eliminate the blue screen of death or BSOD – the tablet has to work. It must be as reliable as a cell phone. It can’t crash. Moreover, it can’t have monthly updates due to security holes which slow the device to a crawl. There is no possibility to run antivirus software constantly – the device has to be protected inherently but at the same time open in-contrast to Apple.

These goalposts are a no-brainer. Microsoft is very late to the game and has issued a critical and important bulletin.

According to the company, a critical vulnerability is one whose exploitation could allow code execution without user interaction. These scenarios include self-propagating malware (e.g. network worms), or unavoidable common use scenarios where code execution occurs without warnings or prompts. This could mean browsing to a web page or opening email.

I asked the company if users should be concerned about Windows RT as a patch is needed so soon and wondered if they could further elaborate on the security and reliability of the platform. They weren’t immediately available for comment.

 

It is worth noting Microsoft also had some issues with its Touch Cover ripping – again, the company needs to be doing things better and should have this product perfected by now.

On the flipside, Redmond can be considered a newcomer to the tablet hardware market and perhaps we should cut it a very small amount of slack.

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