Google Ditches Windows for Linux or Mac
In a very interesting article from the Financial Times, it seems that Google's recent brush with the Chinese hackers that compromised their systems has left them looking for the real root causes of the incident. To that end, they have decided that it's Windows that is the security threat, not the people:
New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. “Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. “Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”
Indeed, the source points to the security (or lack thereof) of Windows as the primary reason:
In addition to being a semi-formal policy, employees themselves have grown more concerned about security since the China attacks. “Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security,” said one employee.
Interesting. It says a lot about Google that they don't go the "lock down" approach to the machines - they realize that people need to be able to do things on their machines in order to get work done. So rather than try to make Windows secure, it's easier to just ban it.
Amazing.