Microsoft is the Problem, Not the Solution

Jul 19

On Wednesday July 15, 2020 - across the world - millions of Microsoft customers went to open Outlook and it crashed. Completely. Users couldn’t access their email using their Windows computer at all - not unless they bypassed Outlook and went online to use a web-based version of Outlook.

Microsoft eventually posted a server-side fix for the issue, rolling it out around noon PST. This is to say that millions of people - on tax day in the United States, no less - lost nearly a day’s worth of productivity.

And Microsoft just shrugged.

In February 2020, Microsoft released security updates that deleted the private data of Windows users. This came on the heels of over four years of disruptive updates that spoiled industry confidence and forced Microsoft to try and explain themselves; even an ex-Microsoft employee described the quality control problems at Microsoft as being systemic.

And Microsoft just shrugged.

So how about - in January 2019 - when Microsoft Office365 was down for two whole days?

Yeah, Microsoft just shrugged.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Office 365 security is equally questionable. In 2020 alone, to date:

January 2020. Hackers use malicious apps to gain access to Office 365.
April 2020. An alert from US-CERT describing the vulnerability of millions of MsO365 users; more than one million compromised accounts per month.
May 2020. A hacking threat to Microsoft Teams was announced, threatening another 75 million users.

Microsoft just shrugged.

And finally, ransomware is a significant issue: attacks by aggressors who extort users by encrypting their data. Yet, Microsoft’s mediocre quality control is responsible for the most prominent malware of 2018-2020:

Cryptolocker. It exploits a vulnerability in the Windows platform.
Wannacry. It exploits a vulnerability in the Windows platform.
Cryptowall. It exploits a vulnerability in the Windows platform.
Locky. It exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Word.
Petya. It exploits the file system of Windows.

Microsoft just shrugs.

One could ascertain that the problem is that Microsoft doesn’t give a hoot about its customers.

Others might suggest that Microsoft looks at systemic vulnerabilities as a marketing opportunity to convince users to upgrade or replace their computer systems.

Yet others could criticize Microsoft’s shoddy quality control.

Whatever the reason, Microsoft is chiefly responsible for the lack of security, quality, and confidence in their products and services.

It’s Microsoft’s inattention to these matters that put small businesses and their data at risk. Our computing platforms should be ever more resilient, more reliable, and more secure - every year - but Microsoft’s solutions prove the inverse.

It is my opinion that it would behoove any small business to seriously consider in what ways they could minimize the use of Microsoft’s products within their control.

And here’s the great news: there’s a ton of other options for small business that doesn’t involve Microsoft solutions. Ask me how.

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