Old Content:
Microsoft, Please Steal My Data!
October 10, 2007 by Kyle BradyTags: Business, Future, Google, Heatlh, Microsoft, Privacy
As required by the FTC, a Full Disclosure is available - this piece adheres to the Code of Ethics
Did you catch the sarcasm? Did you? Because something tells me the creator of the most buggy, flawed, attacked, and hacked software in the world is going to have a hard time convincing people their data is secure. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I just have this weird feeling that they're probably running the same software that gets hacked thousands of times a day worldwide...
Congratulations, Microsoft. You beat Google to a release of a new product for once. That is admirable. But that doesn't mean it's a better product, or that people will even care. Being the first to the finish line may win you a race... but we all know that in war there is no ticker tape. There are only mines, rocket launchers, and stealth bombers, but I digress.
Google has been supposedly developing their own product that is intended to revolutionize the medical industry, this is common knowledge in the tech world. Who do you really think is more secure with their data? How many times have you heard of your personal account information being leaked from Google? How often has Microsoft's systems been hacked? How often has Google's systems been hacked? Who is generally treated with greater trust?
The answer is obvious: Google. The world leader in search and information storage considers your personal health information to just be one more shelf to index: all the better to personalize your services, my dear. From my personal experience, people who use Google's products love Google, whereas people who use Microsoft's products typically don't. What is your most used email account, Gmail or Hotmail/Live Mail/Whatever-they-call-it-today?
When the battle is begun, and sides are taken, where will you side? Where will the doctors, and subsequently, the industry side? I'm willing to put the smart money on Google, it's a pretty simple choice. The two behemoths will face off, and battle for the attention... this much is true. But given the history of each company, and their respective mottos (both official and unofficial), chances are that Microsoft Windows Live Spaces Personal Health Identifier Super Home Edition will fail.
Completely, utterly, disastrously... fail.
Kyle can be found on Twitter and MySpace, or reached via email.
