[Hodar]

I concede that the 'NEED' for security is real. However, say a corportation buys 1,000 copies of 'Secure MS Windows' and there is a market for 1,000 other such companies, that is only 1 Million copies of market to please.

We are quite aware that the individual is quite content to buy Symantec or other Firewall software (or a router) to solve the issue, not spend the major bucks to purchase MS's Enterprize software.

Thus, it is simply reduced to a market equation. Tweak existing software and make major bucks vs. re-write software and lose money.

[sigSEGV]

I think that might have been the case 5 years ago, but just about every corporation is getting sick of spending millions on personal firewalls, virus scanners, etc. And we're also sick of facing stuff like this:

http://www.pivx.com/larholm/unpatched/

or this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q328691

In which none of the things mentioned above will have any effect.

[Timesink]

Thus, it is simply reduced to a market equation. Tweak existing software and make major bucks vs. re-write software and lose money.

Apple has far, far fewer resources than Microsoft, yet OS X is a completely brand new, build-from-the-ground-up operating system, and they're doing just fine financially (or, at least, about as well as they always have). The only things that could possibly be stopping MS from doing a ground-up rebuild of WIndows are either greed or complacency. No, they couldn't do it in a couple of weeks. And yes, it would be harder for them since they have to deal with every wacked-out pieced-together PC and component out there. But they could do it.