Microsoft to Security Vendors - "Oops!"

"Accidents happen. Really, they do. Honest. No, nobody is laughing...no, that's the department's pet hyena. Yeah, they're great pets..."

One could imagine that being the statement of the day from Microsoft's Stephen Toulouse, the Senior Project Manager for Vista. Having just been forced last week to give the kernel over to security vendors thanks to the EU, he and his team set up a web meeting with those firms. The goal was to establish some protocols for the hand-off, set some guidelines, and get everyone on the same page. Funny, then, that the e-mail with a link to the web meeting sent them all to the wrong page.

"Oops," read Toulouse's blog.

The incorrect LiveMeeting link was discovered before monday's meeting, thankfully. However, when the meeting was rescheduled for thirty minutes later, a few firms ended up being unable to attend. For example, Symantec was only able to have one person available for the meeting, which assuredly must have upset many of the Microsoft team. I bet that afterwards, they were really looking forward to a joint company picnic. In order to accomodate for those inconvenienced by the little "whoopsies," Microsoft has promised a second meeting.

Though both Symantec and McAfee had some harsh words for the error, not everyone was so upset. The President of Sunbelt Software, which makes loads of anti-spam/virus software for Exchange Server, felt that this was nothing more than a poorly timed accident. "It was a case of a few honest mistakes made by well-intentioned people, probably working under a tremendous amount of stress," he stated in his own blog.

Got a thought on the "Oops"? Or do you think it wasn't such an oops at all? Let us know in our forums. Maybe our link will even be right.