Only Microsoft can help …
p2p news / p2pnet: I can see it now…
Deep down in the bowels of Microsoft’s Redmond complex at the end of a long, long coridor there’s a basement nobody ever enters — except for a trusted handful from Microsoft’s PR department. And there, immediately after Hurricane Katrina, a meeting is called.
"Okay people, I’m looking for initial thoughts on this," says the suited head of this covert sub-section.. "What’s the first thing that comes to you?" – he asks, pointing to a young man freshly recruited from a top New York law firm. The young lawyer already has his pitch ready.
"Only Microsoft can help you survive the aftermath of a natural disaster", he says.
This sub-section is very busy.
I was absolutely appalled when I read the statements by FEMA’s chief information officer Barry West was defending FEMA’s Internet Explorer 6-only website where victims of Hurricane Katrina could apply for aid.
According to West, FEMA’s goal was to provide a service to help "a common denominator of users and that meant Microsoft…the priority was to set something up quickly," he told the BBC. The sheer arrogance of that statement should give Americans cause for embarresment on behalf of their government, (or considering FEMA’s general inability to function during the Katrina crisis, more embarresment).
Yes, it was an emergency and Yes, most people do use Internet Explorer. But at the end of the day, how bloody hard is it to build a multi-browser website?
Seriously, even I know web designers who spend hours making sure their pages display properly in nine different browsers, and I find it troubling that FEMA didn’t even consider non-IE users before the disaster. Macs have become much more viable alternatives in recent years, especially since Steve Jobs return to the company. And Linux distros are much more usable than they were even a year ago.
Non-Microsoft browsers currently account for a little under 20% of the total browser market-share, and those alternatives are eating away at Internet Explorer’s dominence all the time.
Forty-five percent of people who applied for aid did so through the website. Around 20% of the browsers out there are not Microsoft’s. A back-of-the-envelope number crunch shows about 9% of the total number of people who tried to apply for aid during Katrina were unable to, simply because they weren’t customers of one particular company.
Yes, you read it right. Nearly 1 in 10 were told to bugger off and get a browser that FEMA could be bothered supporting.
Nobody can blame people for using other browsers, especially in the wake of the look-at-a-picture-and-get-a-virus debacle that MS had in the works for over fifteen years. I’ve certainly enjoyed being a Firefox user over the last week as people started talking about the warning pop-ups it gave.
Now I have to ask: can we see a repeat of this kind of thing with the Tsunami Warning System?
"Warning! You may be about to die from a tidal wave! Please purchase Windows Vista and try again. Have a nice day!"
What happens when people start using their computers as TVs in large numbers? "Error T057HD5. Earthquake Alert could not be displayed due to presence of Linux".
The reason we have standards is so everyone, not just some, can get the same information. Nex time there’s a natural disaster, I invite FEMA and any other emergency response organization to post on slashdot and ask for help. I can guarentee you’ll get hundreds of people willing to code a multi-browser website at no charge.
Or better yet, get multi-browser support now. It’s not that hard.
Up, up, up on the top floor of Apple headquaters in California, Steve Jobs called a meeting of his top executives.
"If if this keeps happening, someone is going to die solely as a result of buying an Apple product instead of a piece of crap from Microsoft", he said.
"I’m sending you guys on a mission to Washington. 2002 E-Government Act, accessable information for the public, I don’t care what you throw at ‘em. Get those bastards to stop thinking about Microsoft whenever they want to do something. Information is a global resource Goddamnit!"
"Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with the guys working on FairPlay…"
Alex H, p2pnet - Sydney, Australia
[Alex is an operations manager for an ATM (automatic teller machine) supplier and he specialises in infrastructure development and maintenance, and logistics. He’s also an[other] active member of the Shareaza community who’s just started his own blog called Tech Loves Art where you’ll find past p2pnet posts, together with other goodies to come ; ]
January 7th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Say what you will, but folks are leaving the Microsoft fold. Firefox has steadily increased its user base numbers with good reason. Since the days of the browser wars, Microsucks has had the oppurtunity to improve its browser to be all it can be. Instead, since there was no competion on the browser scene, Microsucks saw no reason to improve the security of the browser. When it started becoming evident that hackers and crackers were exploiting the code holes for security penatration, Microsucks had all the time in the world to addess those issues, yet even today there are day by day being discovered yet new areas of oppurtunity to get into Windows boxes.
Simply, lack of competion has done nothing to help improve the product that MS produces. When it reached the point that Homeland Security was saying that one of the biggest security holes on computer users systems was the IE, people started getting Firefox. That hasn’t changed and day by day yet more people are leaving the fold for something a bit more secure. However true to all government, it is rare that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. FEMA is yet another example to be held up to the light on this.
(I might mention I was in New Orleans for New Years Eve.) There are so many jokes about FEMA in tee shirt shops there, one has to wonder if maybe the government ought to oust the FEMA entirely for some other nick that wouldn’t have such negetive conatations. One tee shirt read…
FEMA’s new evacution plan for New Orleans… Swim like hell.