We may have griped about the problems we had upgrading our iPhones to iOS 5, but at least those old handsets are being upgraded to Apple’s latest OS. A new piece of research published in the US suggests the majority of Android handset owners are being left behind by the ever-evolving Google operating system.

The research, by Michael DeGusta from TheUnderstatement.com, tracked every Android handset released in the US before July 2010, and then recorded how many of them had been updated to the latest version of the OS. The results were startling.

Only three of the 18 handsets had been updated to the latest version of Android.   Ten of the 18 were at least two major versions behind, and 11 of them had stopped getting any support updates less than a year after their release.

By the end of an 18-24 month mobile phone contract, the vast majority of Android handset owners will be left with a phone that has none of the latest features, and which poses a potential security risk

Amazingly, seven out of the 18 handsets had never run the latest version Android, having shipped with an outdated version of the OS and never caught up.

By the end of an 18-24 month mobile phone contract, the vast majority of Android handset owners will be left with a phone that has none of the latest features, and which poses a potential security risk because crucial OS patches are not being applied.

Compare and contrast that to Apple, which included the two-and-a-half-year-old iPhone 3GS in this month’s iOS update, and Microsoft, which has today confirmed that it’s delivered the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update to “100% of eligible phones around the world, regardless of carrier”.

Apple, of course, updates handsets directly, while Microsoft tests updates with handset manufacturers and carriers, before pushing them out itself via Microsoft Update. Android updates, on the other hand, pass from Google to the phone manufacturer to the mobile network – and those extra links in the chain appear to be the problem.

As DeGusta states: “There’s no incentive for smartphone manufacturers to update the OS because manufacturers don’t make any money after the hardware sale, they want you to buy another phone as soon as possible.”

“Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one.”

Android owners can, of course, root their phone to upgrade to the latest version of the OS themselves. But should Android owners really have to turn into low-grade hackers and risk invalidating their warranty just to get their hands on the latest software and features? No wonder Google bought Motorola…

There are six words a football manager never wants to read about himself in a newspaper: “he has lost the dressing room”. Reports of mutiny in the ranks are almost inevitably followed days later with another six-word epitaph: “spending more time with his family”.

Will Steve Ballmer’s three kids soon have more quality time to spend with their dad? Judging by the reaction to last week’s annual employees’ meeting at Microsoft, it’s looking increasingly likely.

The influential Mini-Microsoft blog posts a largely upbeat account of last week’s gathering. Yes, people were reported to be “streaming out” of the hall before the event had finished, although only in “small numbers”, and as the blog points out, it was “nowhere near as bad as BillG’s last company meeting where Ballmer started screaming at people to sit down”.

Yet, the comments on the blog betray a far deeper level of internal anger towards Microsoft and Ballmer in particular. It should be noted that we can’t verify whether the comments are from genuine Microsoft employees or not, but if they are, Ballmer has some serious morale issues to deal with.

Here is a selection of the comments:

“It is the most depressing time per my 10 years at MS, actually. Everyone is either leaving or planning to leave. Everyone is selling stocks.”

“Do yourself a favour. Ignore the noise, the music, the clapping and ask yourself if you really believe what the people on stage are telling you.”

“All our strategies are DEFENSIVE. We’re not creating anything *new* of value, and haven’t since Windows 95. W8 will only prevent Windows from dying immediately.”

“It has been a year since I left MSFT and it has been the best year of my life. The lack of vision from the top, the inane HR and review policies and procedure and the obscure version of ‘teamwork’, where people work together and against each other at the same time, drove me away.”

“SteveB did one of the smartest things I’ve ever seen him do as CEO today: He delegated responsibility by paying someone else to jump around like an a****** during his entrance instead of doing it all by himself. Now if only he’d do the same with his regular day job…”

There are a smattering of positive comments to counter the gloom, and the self-perpetuating nature of blog comments should never be taken as a representative sample of opinion on anything. But the level of bile and – more worryingly for Microsoft – resignation among at least a minority of its staff must be a cause for concern.

Interestingly, even the Microsoft employee who wrote the original, largely positive blog post speculates on a potential change at the top, suggesting that Windows chief Steven Sinofsky is “CEO material”. I made a similar point almost three years ago, when I suggested that Sinofsky might be the man to replace Steve Jobs at Apple.

Apple promoted from within. Perhaps Microsoft should consider doing likewise.

In amongst the flood of details emerging about Windows 8 is the news that the IE 10 browser in the lightweight Metro front-end won’t support plugins. In the scheme of things this might sound pretty small beer, but it’s hugely significant for the long term future of Rich Internet Application (RIA) development and for the web in general.

Most immediately it’s another kick in the teeth for Flash, still reeling from Apple’s iOS ban. It’s not exactly a death blow, as the Windows 8 desktop version of IE will still support the player, but it’s clearly another major disincentive for developers who believed Flash was as universal as HTML.

Understandably all the focus has been on Flash, but even more telling and extraordinary is the realisation that the new no-plugin policy means that the Metro browser won’t even support Microsoft’s own cross-platform RIA technology, Silverlight!

So just what is going on?

Why has Microsoft changed course so dramatically, betraying its Silverlight vision and shafting its developers in the process?

Details on such a major announcement are disappointingly thin on the ground and largely based on an MSDN blog post (Metro style browsing and plug-in free HTML5). However the few reasons given to justify the decision such as they are – “the experience that plugins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web” – are very familiar. Essentially it’s the same argument Steve Jobs gave – “leaving the past behind” – when he outlawed plugins for iOS some 18 months ago. In short, it’s time for the web to move on from old-fashioned “legacy plugins”.

Regular readers will know that I have never bought this argument. More to the point, I know that Microsoft doesn’t either. After all, the company has spent the past five years arguing the exact opposite: namely that page-based HTML is great but that there are certain things that it just isn’t well suited to deliver: little things like high quality media streaming, digital rights management, interactive vector animations, device-based capabilities such as camera and microphone handling and, more generally, the richest possible, desktop-style web experience.

XAML & Silverlight

It’s precisely because Microsoft recognised the limitations of HTML – which remain true for HTML5/ CSS3/JavaScript/SVG – that the company has spent millions rethinking and entirely reworking its application development tools around XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language). XAML is an open, XML-based markup language for building the user-facing front-end for both full-blown WPF-based desktop applications and, crucially, Silverlight-based lightweight RIAs ready for delivery via its own Flash-style cross-platform in-browser plugin.

So why has Microsoft changed course so dramatically, betraying its Silverlight vision and shafting its developers in the process?

Well of course Microsoft would say that it hasn’t. After all, the beautiful XAML-based technology lives on and thrives in Windows 8, it’s just that the end product won’t be delivered in the browser via Silverlight, but rather as standalone Metro apps. Moreover, with the promised Metro App Store, Microsoft is offering its developers a simple way to get their work out to users and to make real money from it based on the now well-established Apple model.

There’s a lot of truth to this and Metro is undoubtedly an exciting opportunity for XAML-based developers – but why not support Silverlight browser delivery too? How can Microsoft possibly argue that it can’t support its own existing lightweight Silverlight player within its own lightweight Metro front-end? In fact, if you really wanted to help Silverlight deliver on its potential, gain market share and reward your long-suffering developers, why not build Silverlight support into the Metro version of IE10 while relegating Flash to the desktop version?

It’s business – as usual

I think that the real answer to this question is also the real answer behind Steve Jobs’ decision to ban Flash: follow the money. Cross-platform, in-browser RIAs extending the universal browser to deliver rich and protected apps and content directly between producer and consumer aren’t a legacy problem to be solved; rather, they are a leading-edge, cloud-based threat to the platform-dependent empires that Microsoft and Apple have built up, and to the App Store and in-app content empires that they are currently building.

Keep the lid on the universal, browser-based user experience by killing off the in-browser RIA technologies and restricting the web to HTML5 and you get to deliver the full RIA experience outside the browser via your iOS and Metro apps, and via your platform-specific App Stores and in-app subscriptions. Not only is your all-important operating system and software ecosystem protected from third-party, cloud-based, cross-platform alternatives; you also get to take 30% of all paid-for app content, with no possibility of competition within your platform.

Look at it like this and Microsoft’s decision to effectively sacrifice its in-browser Silverlight vision makes absolute sense. The RIA vision behind Flash and Silverlight in which the web delivers on its full potential as a cross-platform, universal, open and truly rich connection direct between producer and consumer is a wonderful dream, but this is business.

The Metro UI

First things first, Metro is your main entry point whatever your hardware – and that’s going to annoy a lot of people. It’s large, it’s almost childlike in its design, and it’s so obviously meant for tablets that it feels slightly insulting to anyone who’s comfortable with the ins and outs of the Windows environment.

The concept of full-screen-only apps makes little sense for any device above tablet size, as anyone who works with Outlook, Word, Tweetdeck and Chrome permanently open will quickly realise. You can split apps so that one occupies two-thirds of the screen, but that’s not particularly helpful on larger screens. The desktop itself is technically an app, so you can have that occupy two-thirds with several traditional windows within it. It’s not something I found useful, though.

Metro is a bit iffy to navigate with a mouse. While the live previews in larger tiles are great (giving quick access to tweets, emails and the like – and they can be put on your lock screen too), the icons themselves are big and boxy on a 15in screen, and finding an application to launch manually – even once you’ve dragged them all into related groups of tiles – means much scrolling left and right.

Of course, that’s not the quickest way to launch an application from an idle desktop. In Windows 7 I simply press the Windows key and start typing the name, and the good news is you can still do that here – the difference is no Start menu appears. Or more accurately, the Metro UI is the Start menu, and a press of the Windows key (or a click of the now pretty useless bottom-left Start button) always takes you to that grid. If you’re fast you can ping the full-screen Metro interface up, type the app name and be back on the desktop again in a second, which begs the question why it needs to appear at all when the old, less graphically demanding and space-intensive system worked so well.

The closest thing to a traditional Start menu on the desktop arrives if you instead hover over the Start button. There you get a few menu options, along with a different way in to that search function, which here attempts to search within the currently active app. If that’s not where you want to search – and it usually won’t be – you pretty much have to end up with the full-screen Metro search taking over again. It needs work.

Changing your ways

As you’ll quickly discover, if you want to spend the majority of your time in the traditional desktop, you’re going to have to get used to doing things differently. More specifically, you’ll want to make extensive use of your desktop and taskbar. As we’ve seen, any application not pinned to one of those two locations is tough to launch without returning to the Metro UI in some form. Whether you pile your desktop high with shortcuts will largely depend on how annoying you find that big green grid on a daily basis.

At every opportunity, Windows 8 reminds you that Metro is its new baby: plugging in a USB stick brings up a green tile over the desktop, and further settings are all laid out in the Metro style. Selecting any of the menu options on that previously mentioned mini Start menu produces a vertical Metro bar to the right of the desktop. (Don’t even get us started on why a button in the bottom-left opens a menu on the far right, another design decision made seemingly without the mouse in mind).

All the talk from the launch event has been from people using Windows 8 on tablets, so the quick gestures are getting a lot of love in LA. Back in the real world of PCs and laptops, you can hover over the left edge of the screen to see the last application you had open, and either drag it out to switch to it or right-click to snap it to the right-edge column. It works okay, but other gestures just don’t translate: swiping upwards to unlock, for example, is just horrible with a mouse. Thankfully, a press of the keyboard’s up cursor does the same job, and as far as I can tell most existing keyboard shortcuts still work.

Improvements

Whatever you think of Metro, there are also several smaller changes that really do make a difference on a PC or laptop.

The new Task Manager is excellent, keeping the existing performance monitoring tools but adding heatmapping (think Excel’s conditional formatting) so you can instantly see which processes are using resources, and several graphs, including live wireless throughput. It adds detailed tabs for app history and user activity, and finally brings the Startup options of msconfig into a much more accessible place. Crapware can now easily be prevented from starting up with Windows.

Explorer windows bring back the Up button they’ve been sorely lacking, and while a lot of people hate the ribbon interface I’m not one of them. The file transfer dialog has been improved, with a dynamic graph now showing the transfer speed second by second, and an estimation of time remaining. It rolls multiple transfer jobs into one window too, which is a vast improvement on having them stacked up.

Finally, boot and resume times are excellent, at least on this test laptop. About a year old, and with nothing fancier than a 320GB mechanical hard disk inside, it boots to the lock screen (if you’ve set a password) in around 13 seconds, and to a ready-to-go Windows 8 in just under 19 seconds. Strangely, the only way to power the laptop down appears to be to go into the Power option in the Settings menu; presumably, Microsoft is hoping laptop users will simply close the lid and make use of the improved sleep mode.

Windows 8: the tablet OS

The biggest realisation from a couple of days with Windows 8 on a laptop is that if you’re not willing to throw yourself into the Metro interface with gusto, you’re really not going to see the kind of changes to the OS that everyone else will. Those who just want Windows 7 but better are going to find that, at least behind the fancy new UI, it doesn’t feel a whole lot different.

The desktop is still there, your existing applications can still be run, and most of the noticeable upgrades are to background elements of the environment. We’ve no doubt prettying up the Control Panel and various other tools is long overdue, but what Windows 8 seems most intent on is changing your ways to suit the direction Microsoft is taking. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s certain to split opinion among long-time Windows users.

This is a very early build and I’m well aware that I’ve not spent nearly enough time with it to make a proper judgement. But it’s no surprise that Microsoft installed Windows 8 on a tablet to give to attendees of its Build conference, as that’s clearly where it’s more at home.

As we discussed in the new interface section, Windows 8 now supports two different kind of applications: the new Metro Style apps and conventional desktop software. What’s more, Microsoft is launching its own Store to sell them both from.

Metro Style apps

The full-screen Metro Style apps are likely to be web apps; the kind you would typically expect to find on a tablet. Things such as Twitter clients, video players and news readers, rather than full-blown desktop software such as Office or Photoshop.

Although they can be coded in conventional programming languages such as C and C++, they can also be created using standard web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript (but not, rather controversially, Microsoft’s own Silverlight). And because they are based on web technologies, they are the only applications that can be used across both the x86 and ARM-based versions of Windows 8 without any recompiling.

Microsoft has created a completely new app model and set of APIs for these Metro apps, and they open up some interesting possibilities.

Metro Style apps can, for example, talk to one another. Pictures stored in a photo app can be easily shared with a social networking app. Likewise, you can click the “share” button whilst in Internet Explorer 10, and post a link to straight to a Twitter or email client. “Two apps can share data between them, without the two apps knowing anything about one another,” said Jensen Harris, Microsoft’s director of program management.

The good news for developers is these apps are relatively simple to create. Microsoft showed just how easy it was to create a Metro app using HTML/JavaScript, with an on-stage demonstration that saw a relatively sophisticated drawing app coded in less than 30 minutes using Visual Studio.

There are advantages for users, too. Metro Style apps can be synchronised in the cloud from device to device. Not only does this mean you get the same set of apps across all your Windows devices, but it allows you to pick up where you left off. So if you were half-way through a game on your home desktop, you can continue playing on your tablet on the way to work.

Microsoft app Store

As you would expect, Microsoft will sell both the new Metro apps and conventional desktop software via its own App Store. Indeed, that will be the only way you can get hold of Metro Style apps.

Windows 8 in depth:
Find out about the new interface, apps and the store, performance and Windows 8 on ARM

Like Apple, Microsoft will vet and digitally sign Metro apps before they appear on the Store. All applications will have to pass security, technical and content compliance checks, but in a thinly-veiled swipe at Apple, Microsoft claimed the vetting procedure would take a matter of hours – not days and weeks – and that developers will be kept fully abreast on the progress of their apps.

Microsoft will also give app developers the opportunity to offer free trials of their applications, saving them from having to code separate “free” or “lite” versions of their apps. The software will be automatically removed from users’ machines when the trial period expires.

Developers of conventional desktop software won’t have to alter their code or licensing model to appear in Microsoft’s app Store. However, Microsoft didn’t reveal what cut it would take on apps sold via its Store.

The Microsoft Store is very much a work in progress – the Store link on the developer build of the operating system we’ve been supplied merely links to a holding page.

Now click here for further details on:

The new interface
Performance
Windows 8 on ARM

With Microsoft deciding to push “full fat” Windows onto tablets, the operating system’s performance is going to be critical.

The company had already stated that the system requirements for Windows 8 would be no greater than those of Windows 7. Now it claims to have improved on the performance of its predecessor.

“We’re using considerably less memory in Windows 8,” claimed Gabriel Aul, director of project management for Windows fundamentals, who showed the Task Manager for Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines running side-by-side, with the latter using between 10-20% less RAM with the operating system sat idle.

Aul also claims CPU optimisations allow the processor to stay in “a lower power state for much longer”. So what does this mean for Windows 8 battery life?

Battery tests

Our early tests – albeit using far from finished code – suggests Windows 8 is going to lag far behind Android and iOS tablets when it comes to battery life. Our test tablet is an 11.6in Samsung device, with a Core i5-2467M processor running at 1.6GHz, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. From almost the moment we pressed the power button, the tablet’s fans kicked in and the back of the tablet became warm to touch – providing far from desirable levels of noise and heat. Within only three hours of relatively light use, we were forced to plug the device into the mains. The iPad 2, by comparison, lasted for almost 14 hours in our battery tests.

Windows 8 in depth:
Find out about the new interface, apps and the store, performance and Windows 8 on ARM

In Microsoft’s defence, there is an element of comparing apples to pears here: Windows 8 is a more fully featured OS than Apple’s iOS, and our test tablet is running on Intel’s relaitvely power-hungry processor, not the more energy efficient ARM processors that the iPad does and Windows 8 will, so don’t draw too many conclusions from these early tests.

It’s also worth noting that Microsoft has introduced a new power state, called Connected Standby. In this mode the device is almost inactive, turning itself on occasionally to update web apps with new data. As a result, Microsoft claims standby times will be measured in days rather than hours.

Fast boot times

One area where Microsoft definitely isn’t lagging behind is boot times. From a completely cold start, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 8 laptops booting to the new Start screen in less than eight seconds.  It’s even faster when shutting down, switching off in less than four seconds in one demonstration. We’ve recorded similar times on our test tablet, too.

There’s more good news for people plagued by Windows Updates kicking in when they try and rush out of the door in a hurry: if an update requires a reboot users will be granted a “grace period” allowing them to choose when the update should be applied.

Task Manager

No version of Windows – even one primarily pitched at tablets – would be complete without a Task Manager. Microsoft has completely revamped the Task Manager for Windows 8. The default screen shows only the running applications, allowing users to quickly kill a stalled app.

The more detailed view, however, provides a pleasing level of detail for techies. There’s now a heatmap of resources, with applications consuming more than their fair share of memory or CPU cycles shown in a darker shade of yellow, allowing you to easily identify the resource hogs on your system.

The new Task Manager also reveals how the new Metro Style are pushed into “suspended” state when they’ve been pushed into the background. In this state, they can still retain data in memory, but don’t lock up any CPU cycles.

It’s also now possible to prevent applications from running on start-up from the Task Manager, making it easier to kill the harmful effects of manufacturer-installed crapware.

Wipe clean

Microsoft has also delivered a couple of new features for when things go horribly wrong with your PC. The new boot-up sequence includes an option to restore your device to factory settings – a process that Microsoft demonstrated taking less than five minutes.

There’s also a new option to “refresh” your PC. This retains all your files, data, favourites, and applications downloaded from the Microsoft Store, and lays them on top of a fresh installation of the operating system – again, in around five minutes.  Microsoft claims this will be particularly helpful on occasions when a rogue app takes command of file associations, and will also help cut the workload of IT support desks who are often called on to re-image a misbehaving PC.

Now click here for further details on:

The new interface
Apps and the Store
Windows 8 on ARM

A Microsoft press release that landed in my inbox this morning has left me fuming. “Microsoft Survey Warns of Emerging Internet Phone Scam” reads the headline.

The “emerging” phone scam it’s referring to? The swindle that sees conmen cold-calling computer owners, telling them they’ve got a virus on their PC, fleecing them for hundreds of pounds to remotely “repair” non-existent problems and installing God knows what on their PC in the process. The very same phone scam that PC Pro was the first publication to uncover in March 2010.

Why it has taken Microsoft 16 months to wake up to this problem is bewildering. Especially as we alerted Microsoft’s press office to the fact that these con artists were often pretending to be Microsoft and splashing Windows-style logos all over their websites when we broke the story last March.

In the meantime, it’s clear that thousands of people have been cheated. Microsoft’s own survey finds that “79% of people deceived in this way suffered some sort of financial loss”. The details are even more galling:

* 17% of victims had money taken from their accounts

* 19% reported compromised passwords

* 17% were victims of identity fraud

* 53% suffered subsequent computer problems

* The average amount of money stolen was £543

* The average cost of repairing damage caused to computers was £1,073  — rising to $4,800 (£2,977) in the US

* Only two thirds of the people defrauded were able to recover the stolen money (presumably from their credit-card company), and even then, only an average of 42% of the stolen funds

Only now is Microsoft publicising the scam – and conveniently reminding users that Microsoft’s own security software would prevent the installation of malicious software. If it had pulled its finger out and warned people of this 16 months ago, many thousands more people might not have been left with a large credit-card bill, a ruined credit history and a broken PC.

When we asked Microsoft why it had taken so long to warn people of this rip-off, a spokesman replied:

“Microsoft had been aware of these phone scams but wanted to look into the breadth that they have spread, especially among English speaking countries.”

A statement that, to my mind, borders on dereliction of duty. You don’t spend 16 months sitting on your hands waiting for nice pretty patterns to emerge on Excel spreadsheets before you warn people of an expensive con trick; you do it as soon as humanly possible.

Furthermore, we asked Microsoft – which spends countless millions pursuing small scale pirates selling knocked-off copies of Windows on market stalls – what it’s done about shutting down these rogue “repairmen”, who are often trading under the Microsoft name.

“Microsoft is investigating the cases reported to us by customers and we will consider legal action where appropriate, as we have in other online scareware cases to date.  We continue to encourage consumers to exercise caution from scams and follow the guidance found at The Microsoft Safety & Security Center.”

Which is PR speak for “not a lot”.

Microsoft has made great strides in improving the security of Windows in recent years, which is partly why these new “social engineering” scams have emerged. But as with Apple’s sluggish (although relatively lightning fast) response to the similar Mac Defender scam, these companies have to do more than defend their operating systems: they have to defend the people using them too.

So Microsoft is buying skype for $8bn. Whether that figure includes the $686m of debt that Skype has isn’t clear. What is clear is that this is a huge amount of money for a company that has a turnover of $859m and an operating loss of $7m.

What is staggering is that Microsoft has bought it. Skype would have been a great fit for Apple. A great fit for Facebook. But Microsoft? Hello?

When an acquisition like this is announced, we sit around stroking our beards pontificating about the “synergy”, the “good fit” and so forth.

Microsoft has a full infrastructure in place with MSN and Lync. It has the Lync services in place for the new Office 365 product. How on earth does Skype fit in here?

And then it all becomes clear. Microsoft is basically buying 600 million customer details. And Skype is a perfect fit for the online services division of Microsoft, which manages to haemorrhage money year after year. Skype is therefore the perfect acquisition.

More and more businesses are dreading that Tuesday every month when Microsoft release a bunch of security patches and updates.

Patch Tuesday should be a thing to look forward to, of course, seeing as it’s when the latest round of application and operating system vulnerabilities get a nice big sticking plaster to protect your systems and data from exploit. The trouble is that when, as with the latest Patch Tuesday, there are no fewer than 17 security bulletins (nine rated as critical) covering a whopping 64 vulnerabilities –  many of the patches requiring a full system restart – it all starts to become something of an IT management nightmare. Especially for the smaller business where there isn’t an IT manager or even an IT department to handle such things.

The vast majority of smaller businesses that I talk to are not IT savvy, they get by and rely upon the systems and software they are supplied to do their job. They don’t switch browser to Firefox or Chrome, they run Internet Explorer because that’s what everyone else uses and it came with the box. What’s more, they often run an older version of Internet Explorer as they apply the “if it ain’t broke” rule. Wrongly in the case of older versions of IE, of course, which are broken from a security perspective.

The latest Patch Tuesday updates included one (security bulletin MS11-018, which was rated critical and covered IE6, IE7 and IE8) which protects them from a vulnerability that can compromise the browser as soon as it visits a malicious site. It’s vital if a business is using one of those versions of Internet Explorer that they apply the patch, yet it’s bundled in with all the others and likely to be lost in an all or nothing approach to updating.

Surely it would be better if Microsoft rolled out patches individually, on demand, as they became available, rather than storing them up and releasing them in a flood like this?

Many small businesses opt for the nothing approach, at least in the short term, as installing and rebooting eats into either work or leisure time. Many will have been advised to turn off automatic updating to prevent such interruptions to their business processes and will simply ignore the warnings about updates altogether.

For consumers these mammoth updates are a nuisance, but nothing more. If they want to minimise disruption they can simply schedule the update to take place while they sleep. Small businesses are not in such a position, they have to supervise the process to ensure there are no hiccups. Those businesses without specialist IT support are in a Catch-22 situation: they have to understand the vulnerabilities as they apply to their particular needs and prioritise the patching process accordingly, but they don’t so they can’t. Then there’s the problem of compatibility testing, especially if the business uses custom applications that could be impacted by the patching.

Security patching of critical vulnerabilities is vital to safeguard your business data, but unplanned patching can interrupt business processes and potentially break custom applications. Surely it would be better if Microsoft rolled out patches individually, on demand, as they became available, rather than storing them up and releasing them in a flood like this? Surely it would be better if the reasons for patching and implications of not patching were explained better to the end users rather than pointing to the somewhat jargonised security bulletins?

So, if you are a small business, how do you deal with Patch Tuesday?

You’d assume that the high-fliers at the top IT companies are a smart bunch, given the importance of their roles to the industry, but every so often you have to sit back and wonder what they’re thinking of.

Take Microsoft’s decision to mimic Google’s Street View photographic mapping of the world, the service that landed Google in hot water with authorities around the world for breaching privacy codes.

Microsoft has started sending its Streetside camera cars around London, capturing images of homes and businesses to meld into its mapping services and Bing search engine. It will also collect Wi-Fi data to help with accurate positioning.

Presumably Microsoft will have learned from the Google data-collection fiasco and won’t collect personal details, but the question remains: why bother?

Google’s Street View service and Microsoft’s clone may yet prove the most profitable thing since search-based advertising, but so far all it has done for Google is cause grief with the authorities, create an atmosphere of suspicion for consumers, and spark headlines such as “Burglars use Street View to steal lead from church roof ”.

All of this might be fair enough if the service was an absolute money spinner, but with the exception of location-based window dressing it’s hard to see the value.

From this user’s point of view, I’m totally unconvinced. In the same way that a classroom dictionary is only used to look up rude words, to me, Street View seems to be a one-time only chance to look at a friend’s house and laugh at their curtains. It’s hardly a riveting destination and if I wanted to look at pictures of famous landmarks I’d much rather head over to Flickr, where the images are far superior.

The real benefits of the service would come when people were out and about, Microsoft believes, with location and advertising information overlaid on the images on a mobile device. I stand to be corrected, but the value of Street View “on the ground” is fairly limited. When I am standing on the corner of the High Street and Acacia Avenue, I can see HMV; I don’t need Google, or Microsoft, to tell me it’s right in front of me.

Mapping the whole world seemed like a neat piece of showing off from Google, but there’s surely little reason to repeat the process, especially at a time when Microsoft appears to be enjoying something of a revival in public perception.

There’s no reason to risk the fate of Google, which is viewed with significantly more suspicion since its Street View data mining faux pas. With Streetside, Microsoft risks walking the same path. And for what?