A year after Bill Gates called for Microsoft to make its products more "trustworthy," executives are touting myriad initiatives as proof of the software giant"s new resolve.
The company has spent millions to train staff in privacy concerns and secure programming, while building new tools and processes to help create reliable software.
But critics--and Microsoft"s own executives--said much more work remains.
"A year after, the verdict is mixed," said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for managed-security company Counterpane Internet Security. "Some stuff, it"s too early to tell; some stuff, they haven"t gotten; and some, they"ve improved."
That"s an assessment Microsoft readily concedes.
"We said that Trustworthy Computing is a 10-year project, sort of like (President) Kennedy sending people to the moon," said Scott Charney, chief security strategist for Microsoft. "We"re (only) a year into it. We want to get to a point where the end user says, I trust this technology, my privacy is protected, and it is reliable."