So, if Microsoft Office is using a different Windows API than is available to competitors (it is their own product!), that is ok? I know this has been claimed at various point, usually as a harsh accusation, I'm asking if you think it is ok?

Apps are not the only way in though. Web and email coupled with vulnerability exploits are obvious vectors, Bluetooth and NFC exploits have been demonstrated. I'm using an Android phone myself, but I think we are doing ourselves the same disservice Mac users did (and ended up with the biggest malware epidemic in modern times in terms of percentage of user base affected with Flashback) if we discount the malware threat to be just AV vendor marketing and not a potential real threat. Especially since such a large portion of the Android user base is on old vulnerable versions long after Google has patched vulnerabilities and improved security.

"Classified" data are hardly suited for a normal BYOD scenario, but there are other types of data that can be regulated how the company need to handle, like customer and user data, information about sales/potential sales/deals, etc. You are right that if you copy company data to an USB drive that can be accessible for others, that is a security risk too, which is why device management that includes control over USB usage is growing rapidly. But another risk with the BYOD phone that a USB stick doesn't have, is how easily it can leak all the company information to highly insecure consumer cloud services (something an unmanaged PC can do as well of course).

If you let company admin access to lock and wipe your device, control what apps you install and use - like fx very insecure data-syncing services like icloud/dropbox, etc. then it is not really your personal BYOD device anymore, it is a company device. If you don't have this, the device is not company secure (it doesn't help enforcing local device encryption and password policies to prevent access to company data if you are leaking same company data to highly insecure consumer cloud services or in other ways setting up and using your phone in an insecure way).

As several others have said on the thread already, the answer for BYOD security is that the phone needs to be running a controlled separate/virtual environment for the company that is completely walled off from the personal part of your phone.

Not claiming Microsoft isn't worse than Google, but you might be interested to know that point b is not entirely correct. It is the version often being repeated on sites like Slashdot, for some reason, but the actual sequence of events as extensively covered in European press as it happened:

Google actually first guaranteed the German authorities that they were not collecting anything. And first after the German authorities despite this assurance still demanded a full audit of the data anyway, did Google do their disclosure. In a situation where they would have been found out anyway. (trying to delete data after being requested for auditing would be a major crime)

I'm not saying this is making it more or less of an innocent screw-up from Google, your point a still stands, I'm just saying what the sequence of events in this story actually were.

Most economists would agree with you on that (not sure if that in geek circles is taken as a compliment or not, but given as one, we tend to be far too dismissive of other expertise than our own)

Indeed. And this tension is holding the balance. These are much more complex systems than most imagine, and we have developed a set of checks and balances that work. Soundbites about "feds printing money" doesn't really mean anything if you don't understand the model. And your point about the issues not being in big mature countries is my point as well. On the other hand bitocoins that some see as a better alternative loose 2/3rds of value overnight. You have you to be really idealistically theoretically motivated to compare that as equal or better.

Thanks for blog references, will read, actually interested in the various sides of this topic.

citation?

ok, so ad networks (as search business) are winner takes it all. Because of the dynamics of the bidding engine when you get volume. Any ad developer that have a business guy worth his salt would go for one of the leading ad network opportunities over the small me-too player that Microsoft pubcenter is, also when you develop apps for Windows 8 (contrary to what the summary might seem to apply, Windows 8 app developers are in no way limited to pubcenter).

My point wasn't really who launched the store first, sorry if that was unclear, but that when the WMA stores launched they had less DRM restrictions than iTunes had at the same time. I used both iTunes and MSN Music myself at the same time (yes, really). Especially the option to freely re-download songs if you lost the license for some reason (accidentally deleted, sync error, lost with PC), instead of having to buy it again. This is pretty major, and iTunes did not have it at the time, you had to buy the song a second time. That is about the worst possible outcome of DRM restrictions. I'm also quite sure MSN Music gave you more freedom to have more copies of the music on multiple machines and on multiple MP3 players simultaneously (having multi-sync relationships that iTunes tended to wipe and reset), but a quick search gave unclear details on this.

And quite a bit later MS did shaft their customers when the license servers shut down, so I'll happily stomp on them too for that, but still doesn't change the point about whether Apple/iTunes really were the ones driving for less DRM. Especially with the point you completely left out, that Amazon launched full DRM free music store before Apple (with full catalogue, and same price for tracks as DRM'd)..

Apple have this perception that they pushed for removing DRM, which might be true, but it is interesting that at the time of iTunes DRM the competing WMA "plays for sure" (*) stores actually had less DRM restrictions than Apple (you could keep and use more copies of the songs on more devices simultaneously, burn more copies, re-download if license lost, etc - iTunes caught up on some of these eventually but was not in the lead for less DRM). And it was Amazon who was first with a full DRM-free music catalogue, and at the same price (at the time iTunes had started selling some DRM free tracks at a higher price than non-DRM).

This might be that the record companies were stricter with Apple than everybody else (which would be the opposite of the story that Apple used their power to force the record companies). But at the time Apple had a clear advantage from the lock-in that DRM gave the iPod/iTunes ecosystem in the beginning, so not sure how much they really disliked this situation for a while at least.

(*) Plays for sure became a joke when Microsoft abandoned it, but at the time I used it because my Sansa player supported it.

I agree about not having "brand loyalty", but disagree about all being the same in terms of quality. In my experience the Lenovo Thinkpads fx are certainly more consistently solidly built and have less issues than other PC laptops. A long time ago Toshiba had a similar thing going for it, but lost it. If Samsung should prove to be able to step up (they are making good attempts in their top end), I'd be happy to switch to Samsung over Lenovo, so not married to Lenovo by any means.

Even as a PC user I admit that same argument can be made for Macbooks, even if they too are just using standard PC components and Chinese production, there is a build quality difference vs the cheapest PCs.

Windows 8 sleep/resume on a modern ultrabook is in my experience just as quick and stable as OS-X on Macbook Air. And if you look at the comments by Win8 users here, most mention sleep/resume improvements at the same time they mention boot times, but the replies go off on the boot tangent only, ignoring the sleep/resume improvements called out.

Actually, I'm not sure this has changed that much. There has always been a strong push-back to changes in known UX and use on geek sites like Slashdot. The Windows XP UI got endless scorn when launched, now it is heralded as how things should stay by many. We sometimes post these arguments using "average Joe" as an excuse, but it seems to me that it is us geeks who are more set in our ways than casual users.

I still remember there being a very prevalent opinion on Slashdot that smartphones were a stupid development, a) because a phone was a device to call with, period, and b) it was much better to have multiple devices (MP3 player, compact camera, PDA/laptop, etc.) than combine it on a phone, and c) who would want greasy finger marks all over their phone screen?

There have been several well known (some even presented at Black Hat) ways of breaking out of the Android sandbox, and Linux privilege escalation exploits, to completely compromise an Android phone. The biggest problem with Android security though is that even Google has been good at adding security features and fixing vulnerabilities, most of the user base is on older vulnerable versions, with added "functionality" from handset makers and operators undermining security further.

How does replacing a pop-up start menu with a full page start menu, but otherwise make the OS faster in every way (boot, sleep/resume, use) and fully backwards compatible "hamper the hell out of work". I get that the new start menu can be jarring, and that the need to click once to get to traditional desktop mode can be irritating, but I'm really lost in the Slashdot hyperbole of how extremely bad this is. I agree that metro and desktop could have smoother co-existence, and better defaults to stay with one or the other for the people who want that. But as I have and use Win8 on a new non-touch laptop, I think the exaggerations are ridiculous.