Comments on: Security rivals shut out of Microsoft meeting

An online meeting to discuss Windows Vista changes crashed shortly after it started, leaving Symantec and McAfee in the dark.

[georgiarat]

Surprised?

Live Meeting problems? Too bad, should not have depended on MS
technology to work.....especially in volume and especially as a
non-MS site.

[rcrusoe]

Low blow

Completely true, but low. :)

[MadKiwi]

They should have...

... used iChat

How is this news, CNET?

CNET, do you REALLY think that a meeting having a technical problem is NEWS? My goodness, I've had many dozens of conference calls interupted because of phone system problems. Is it a slow news day, or is your editor just some MS-basher picking and choosing your articles as if they were some sort of op-ed to slam MS?

Articles like this are what make me think CNET is often at the bottom rung of journalism, just below that tabloid with the Alien Baby headlines.

[8ball629]

Tech Issues

Tech issues are hardly the story with this one. The story is MS had a meeting with security companies about Vista, they lost connection and MS ended the meeting without figuring out what happened to the other two companies.

This sounds like they are not ready to release and they know it but don't want the security companies to have insight to this OR they just don't want to conduct business with them.

Don't you wait for all parties to reconnect before you carry on with a conference?

[Shakingmy head]

Must be a very slow news day????

Agree. If technical problems for every on-line meeting in the world were reported today we would have nothing else to talk about. I have used all varieties of on-line tools and glitches happen. Do Symantic and MacAfee really have the time to run to the press for such petty complaints? Get a life.

[Microsoft_Facts]

Microsoft = Legacy and Unstable Software

I have to agree with the last comment, Microsoft technologies failing businesses is hardly news. Any business that uses and depends on legacy Microsoft technologies already has one strike against success.

[DrakeLS]

Live Meeting works

We routinely use Live Meeting at our work location and it works great. A lot of times everybody is set as a presenter because it is just easier to do so (you don't have to assign anybody a login). If you make some people read-only, then you need to send out invitations to particular people and that takes longer.

I can so easily see why this problem happened - it happens a lot where I work also... and you just need to recreate the meeting and send out the new links.

Not sure why Symantec and McAfee couldn't get back in (although one employee from Symantec could). Sounds like they simply gave up - it would make for better press anyways.

Live Meeting is a good product - and the fact that an admin. screws it up and sends out the wrong type of invites isn't Microsoft's problem.

Our business runs just fine using this product - and it's definitely not 'unstable'... and certainly not 'legacy' lol... it's all web based and smart client based.

[mcepat]

we were invited to this meeting also (me and friend)

we had issues as well, my friend runs symantec software and his machine is so slowed down and bogged down by symantec that it was unable to install any more software so it could not run Live Meeting, its the latest version to?

My issue was Mcafee firewall, after telling me 100 times that Live Meeting needed to be allowed I finally gave up! Trouble is its still telling me that I need to allow it with popups after popups?

My other friend had trendmicro and he was able to get right in?

mmm I guess go figure

[ralfthedog]

Technology for the sake of technology

I have never been a big fan of teleconferences. From my experience you get more done with email, phone, and chat.

Looking at the list of companies involved, I would guess the problem was related to a virus.

[Sboston]

Doubtful

Looks more like someone rushing to set up a meeting when they were not very experienced in using the software.

But this isn't news. I cannot tell you how many times I've been in meetings like this (using different software from raindance and webex) that connections have been dropped or the meeting ended before it got started good. It all boiled down to the person setting the meeting up wasn't up to snuff on how to do it.

As for Norton and McCaffee... Stop crying guys, you are starting to look very silly.

[Webinar Success]

Open issues are the problem

I put my detailed comments and observations about this in The Webinar Blog (www.TheWebinarBlog.com).

In short, the problem is not that Microsoft had a technical problem (apparently through an administrative mistake), but that attendees were unable to successfully rejoin after the problem was supposedly resolved. The issue with the commenter saying that security conflicts prevented two others from attending is also disturbing.

Finally, it is interesting to ask if this could have been resolved more easily with a different product design? As one example, WebEx keeps multiple presenters from messing with the presentation space and the meeting host could have reset their authority levels.

[fred dunn]

It's Microsoft, of course it's going to crash...

Surprise surprise surprise. Syamantec and McAfee couldn't reconnect and with only a week and a half before the Vista RTM is in the hands of the Systems OEMs.

What a coincidence.

[Sumatra-Bosch]

It's Crashed and Burned in MSFT-Only Conferences As Well

Please, please, people, a conspiracy requires competence, planning and strict discipline to assure confidentiality, qualities never ever ascribed to MSFT. In fact, LiveMeeting has crashed and burned at MSFT events before, even when it was managed within MSFT's own office environment. The only reason it got press is because of the heated issue of kernel access between MSFT and the AV vendors.

The software is simply unstable and unfinished, like most of the crappy code the company shoves out the door.

[Ryo Hazuki]

It caught my house on fire

This is a tuff one indeed, for Microsoft-bashers: on one hand they can claim its one of those strategies by monopolist Microsoft to shut down competitors, on the other hand, they can claim Microsoft software stinks!
Sumatra-Bosch went the 2nd route. But he should be more agressive: are you sure LiveMeeting just crashed and burned, are you sure it didn't explode and burst into flames seriously hurting 253 people? I mean, you talk like you use that software everyday, tell us about it. How bad is it, don't be naive?

Last time I checked, developing an OS for more than 90% of the computers used everyday around the world required that and perhaps even a little more, so there goes your statement. And I'd love to hear you explain me how does software "burn" exactly (if you have the time, prfessor). Maybe the only reason it got press is because it is news that LiveMeeting crashes, if it's not and they just reported this because of Symantec and McAfee, where did you get that data from, do you work in these companies, is it? Finally, I'd like to read more about your review of LiveMeeting (you seem to use it everyday, which is rather interesting, maybe to do conferences with planet "Apple" or planet "Linux", no?), maybe you have a word on Microsoft Dynamics or SharePoint or any other typical consumer software, maybe? Where did you get it from? Oh, and just because you don't know how to work with something, it doesn't always mean that "something" is wrong and not something else... ;)

[godam_registration]

Biased article

I know everyone's pissed off at MS, but I'm still gonna say this. This article makes it sound as if the crash was engineered.

Maybe it was, but that's for the public to decide, not the journalists.